mighty mound that the command to put to the sword all who were upon the height above rose to Cromwell's lips. The law of war as it stood then, and long afterwards, authorised him to give the order to slay the defenders of an indefensible post, and what better evidence would there be that the post was indefensible than that its appointed guardians had failed to make good their ground?

'The deed of horror was all Cromwell's own. Till he spoke the words of fate, the soldiers above were breaking down the defences of the Mount, and some of them were offering quarter to its defenders. Cromwell's order put an end to these proffers of mercy, and with few exceptions the Royalists on the Mill Mount were butchered as they stood. Aston's head, it is said, was beaten in with his own wooden leg, which the soldiers had torn away in the belief that he had concealed treasure in it. Still Cromwell's wrath was not satiated. In the heat of action there stood out in his mind, through the blood-red haze of war, thoughts of vengeance to be taken for the Ulster massacre confusedly mingled with visions of peace more easily secured by instant severity. Save at the storming of Basing House, he had never yet exercised the rights which the stern law of war placed in his hands; but he had one measure for Protestants and another for "Papists," and especially for Irish "Papists." The stern command to put all to the sword who "were in arms in the town," leapt lightly from his lips.' (Pp. 131-133.)

That Cromwell had some doubts of the propriety of his action after he was in a cooler mood is undoubted, though he had little difficulty in persuading himself that his conduct was right-it would tend to prevent the effusion 'of blood for the future.' That it accentuated the common hatred of English and Irish cannot be doubted—that it prevented more bloodshed is doubtful. Whether it arose from premeditation at all is by no means clear. It was, in truth, rather the fierce action of a strong temper suddenly rushing beyond the power of a will which was powerful at other times in control. By the spring of 1650 Cromwell had retaken a large part of the eastern side of Ireland, and when, on May 26, he returned to England, he left Ireton no greater task than to deal with comparatively scattered bodies of the enemy. The difficult problem of the government of Ireland was in no way nearer settlement, but Ireland could no longer, at any rate, form a basis for Royalist action against the Commonwealth in England.

To do the Irish justice, not one of the parties which disputed for the pre-eminence had seriously aimed at sending forth an army to invade England; but they had allowed themselves to be dragged in the wake of an English political party, and to threaten even more than they were themselves inclined to perform. From the days of Strafford to the days of Ormond the apprehension of an irruption of an Irish

army had weighed like a nightmare on the breasts of Englishmen, and what wonder was it that Englishmen roused themselves at last to bring the danger to an end? Historians may remember that but for former wrongs Irishmen would never have thought of assisting one English party or another. Large bodies of men do not even note such considerations. They see the present danger, and they strike home.

6 That his policy served to inflame, and not to extinguish, the distractions of Ireland was the true "curse of Cromwell." Yet it is hard to see how he could have done other than he did. In dealing with Ireland, as in dealing with the King, he imposed an emphatic negative on a situation which had become intolerable. In England there was to be no kingship without good faith. In Ireland there was to be no meddling with English political life, no attempt to constitute an independent government in the hands of the enemies of the religion and institutions of England.' (Pp. 176-177.)

The state of Scotland demanded the presence of Cromwell in Great Britain. Montrose had made his last campaign for his king, and six days before Cromwell sailed for England he had been executed in Edinburgh. Charles and the Covenanters were bargaining with each other. He was treating them with low duplicity; they were actuated by fanatical folly. Mr. Gardiner occupies a considerable space with the narrative of the negotiations between Charles and the Scotch throughout the spring. If we venture on a criticism of the historian's difficult task, we should point out that too great detail is given to the subject. It exemplifies the weak point of Mr. Gardiner's method-namely, a want of the sense of proportion. The double dealing of Charles, and the obstinate determination of the Scotch to bring him over a king in name, but bound by a most ridiculous and obnoxious agreement, the terms of which were as unpalatable to the larger portion of those who would be his subjects in Great Britain as they were to himself, necessarily brings before us a great mass of petty details which have no permanent interest or importance. Let us take, for example, the signature of the agreement between Charles and the Scotch, which is known as the Treaty of Heligoland. It illustrates the amount of small facts which have either to be stated seriatim or treated in a broader manner :

At last, on June 11, when the little squadron was anchored in the roads of Heligoland, just as the Commissioners were about to declare the negotiations broken off, Charles unexpectedly gave way, and signed the treaty without making any further difficulty. The only thing left

*See The Last Campaign of Montrose,' Edinburgh Review, January 1894.

uncertain was when and where he should take the oath to the two Covenants to which he was now engaged. If he was to bend his neck beneath the yoke, it was better to humiliate himself with as few witnesses as possible, and he accordingly elected to rid himself of the hateful obligation before he stepped on shore. On the 23rd, as soon as the ship in which he sailed had cast anchor at Speymouth, he professed his willingness to do what was expected of him. One feeble attempt, indeed, he made to save his credit in the eyes of his English subjects on board, by asking permission to protest that in taking the oath he had no intention of infringing the laws of England, and that the Bills which he promised to confirm were not those which, though they had already passed the English Parliament, had never received the Royal assent and had consequently expired at the death of the late King. What Charles asked for, in short, was to be allowed to promise to confirm future Bills presented by a future English Parliament which might possibly be very moderately Presbyterian, if indeed it was Presbyterian at all. He gained nothing by his pleading. In the original form of the confirmation of the Covenants he was asked to engage to give his "Royal assent to the Acts of Parliament enjoyning the same" in his dominions outside Scotland. Additional words were now inserted in the margin pledging him to assent to "Bills or ordinances passed or to be passed in the Houses of Parliament," thus binding Charles to give a legal position to the Presbyterian system in England and Ireland immediately upon his restoration in England. Charles at once accepted the position, initialled the marginal correction after he had signed the main body of the document, forswearing himself before God and man.' (Pp. 264-265.)

Cromwell had thus arrived in England none too soon. We have already seen how certain ostensible scruples prevented Fairfax from taking command of the army which was to invade Scotland. His retirement left Cromwell not only the supreme commander of the troops, but, in fact, the master of England.

On Sep

It would be impossible to follow Mr. Gardiner through the minute details of the campaign in Scotland. tember 3, 1650, Cromwell was victorious at Dunbar; he defeated, but did not annihilate, the Royalists. The victory caused great joy at Westminster, but it did not enable the Parliament to change its policy. It had still to look for conspiracies and to find money for the expenses of the government, which at this time cannot have been far short of 2,750,000l., if indeed they did not exceed that 'amount' (p. 417). This was more than three times the revenue of Charles I. in 1635, from which it is obvious that we need not look much further than the question of taxation in order to discover one of the main grounds of national unquiet during the period of the Commonwealth.

Charles and his badly assorted allies were yet to give further trouble to the ruling government in England, and in June of 1651 Cromwell and Leslie were again facing each other to the south of Stirling. The weakness of Charles in relation to England lay not in himself or in his cause, but in his allies. Parliament had had no difficulty in obtaining any number of picked men- that many thousands ' of even selected men should have rallied to the defence of the Commonwealth is good evidence that, whether Parlia'ment was unpopular or not, Scottish invaders were still 'more disliked' (p. 433).

The anti-Scottish feeling of England was even more clearly manifested just before the battle of Worcester, when local feeling was so strongly aroused against Charles that it produced a corresponding feeling for the time in favour of the Commonwealth. Of this sentiment there can be no doubt, and it points clearly to the hastiness and impolicy of Charles's action in relying on Scotland for aid rather than in waiting for some slower but surer support south of the Tweed.

'Three thousand militia-men from Essex and Suffolk marched in to join Fleetwood, raising the whole English army to some 31,000. A smaller party of Worcestershire men secured the bridge at Bewdley. Other local forces occupied Ludlow and Hereford. Gloucester was securely held, and in Bristol at least the authorities declared for Parliament. In Devon 2,000 foot and 200 horse were ready to start. Two regiments from Norfolk and two more from Suffolk were on their march through Hitchin, and a force of militia from Cheshire was already embodied in the army. In Yorkshire 2,000 men had been raised to clear the country of malignants. In London itself, where the feeling against the Commonwealth was usually very strong, no less than twelve regiments of the trained bands, numbering it may be presumed at least 12,000 men, were mustered to witness the burning by the hangman of a copy of Charles's manifesto at the head of every regiment, an act of contempt which was received with general applause.' (Pp. 441-442.)

No stronger evidence of the feeling of England could be given than is contained in this passage.

The manœuvres in Scotland ended by the dash for England which Leslie's army made at the end of July; that despairing move was concluded by the defeat at Worcester, on September 3, of Charles and his army, a defeat by which the invading army was annihilated as a military force, and which ended permanently the alliance between Charles and the Covenanters.

'Once more, in Cromwell's hand, the sword had decided not what should be, but what should not be. Two years and a half before it had decided that England should not be ruled by a faithless King who measured his obligations by the rule of his own interests. Now it decided that she should not be ruled by a King who came in as an invader. When Charles I. was sent to the block, Cromwell had but the support of the army and of a handful of enthusiasts. When he shattered the Scottish army at Worcester he had on his side the national spirit of England. Even amongst the Royalists themselves the current of feeling ran so strong that scarce a man of them would rally round the standard of their King as long as it was borne aloft by Scottish hands. For the first time the founders of the Commonwealth were able to win considerable popular support for their cause.

one.

'As far as England was concerned, therefore, Worcester at least opened the prospect of a constitutional settlement other than a Royalist As far as the relations between the three countries were concerned it was absolutely decisive. England had shown herself strong enough to frustrate the attempts of Ireland and Scotland to dictate the terms on which her internal government was to be carried on. From this verdict of battle there was not, could not, be any appeal. So much of Cromwell's work endured without further challenge.' (Pp. 446-447.)

The victory of Worcester was, in truth, a more momentous event than the execution of Charles I. When one king died at Whitehall, another, by constitutional usage, succeeded him, though for the time he was an exile. But by this battle the new king was apparently debarred for ever from his throne, the monarchy had come to a de facto end, and the Commonwealth appeared firmly established. No one at the end of 1651 could have reasonably supposed that in ten years' time the fugitive who was saving his life with his ready wit while he wandered over England would recover his throne.

It was natural that some of the most prominent persons who had taken part in the Scottish invasion should suffer death, but it cannot be said that Parliament was unmerciful. There was no need that it should be, and it was obviously politic not to irritate more than was possible the defeated party. But the great constitutional question which was urgent was whether or not there should be a dissolution and a new parliament representative as nearly as might be of the will of the people. The time for a dissolution had obviously arrived: the existing parliament could well hand back their trust to the country at the moment when the Royalists were subdued and the maritime power of England was supreme on the high seas.

The narrative of events during the first two years of the