God’s FURY, England’s FIRE

by Braddick, Michael

  It is not clear how this particular deadlock could be broken, although it does seem to have been a measure attractive to those thinking about solutions which did not include Charles – abdication in favour of a more suitable monarch, for example. Cromwell appears to have experienced a conversion to this view, arguing in favour of the measure, referring to the King as a dissembler and quoting scripture: ‘thou shalt not suffer a hypocrite to reign’. But for that very reason it was not immediately acceptable even to an Independent-dominated House of Lords (the impeached Presbyterian Lords still being absent): it was reasonable to fear that those casual of the authority of monarchy in these terms were unlikely to be more friendly towards the authority of the Lords. The General Council of the Army approved a statement ending with the promise to stand by Parliament ‘in what shall be further necessary for prosecution [of the Four Bills], and for settling and securing of the parliament and kingdom, without the King and against him, or any other that shall partake with him’.44

  The Lords did not pass the Vote of No Addresses until 17 January, under pressure from the army, which was brought into London following disorders. In the meantime measures of defence had been taken and the powers previously vested in the Committee of Both Kingdoms were now to be exercised by an all-English Committee of Safety (soon to become known as the Derby House Committee). The Scottish commissioners left London on 24 January having completed arrangements for risings to coincide with an invasion. Their general intentions were no secret, even if the details were as yet not public. Parliament reduced the King’s household at Carisbrooke and set about preparing a declaration in defence of the Vote of No Addresses.45

  Both the Engagement and the Declaration explaining the Vote of No Addresses justified their positions on the basis of histories. The Engagement passed over the moment at which the Covenanters had sold their monarch, and instead took up the story with the King’s involuntary departure from Holmby in the hands of the army. Forced to flee to the Isle of Wight, he had been pressed by the Scottish commissioners to go to London to enter into a personal treaty but this too had been thwarted by the army. They had driven members out of the House and occupied London. Moreover, using their influence they had made propositions to the King without consulting the Scots, in contravention of the Solemn League and Covenant. Not only was this in breach of the treaty, but it was dangerous to religion. It was this – the malign influence of the army – which justified the military intervention now being planned.46

  The Declaration, drawn up between 5 and 11 February, was published for the service of Parliament and members of the Commons were ordered to disseminate the pamphlet. It ran to thirty-seven pages: a long denunciation of Charles’s negotiating tactics was followed by a history of Charles’s untrustworthiness. Despite opposition in the Commons, it raked up an old canard that Charles had colluded with his friend Buckingham in his father’s murder and went on from there: it was a case that had been made not only in the Grand Remonstrance but also following the capture of the King’s letters at Naseby. But the now-familiar view of Charles was here used to clinch a more or less final view of him: there could be no more addresses since the King could not be trusted, and so no agreement with him was possible. It was passed 80–50.47

  Most modern historians have been more persuaded by the Declaration than the Engagement. In early 1647 Charles had been the natural rallying point of those opposed to war; by the end of the year it was dangerously easy to present him as a warmonger, bringing further bloodshed on his suffering people. A (more or less) uninvited Scottish occupation in 1640 had been followed by one in 1643 at the instigation of Parliament. Now it was the King’s turn.

  Two powerful images of Charles compete for attention during 1647. He had spent the year under more or less undignified restraint. ‘Sold’ by the Covenanters at Newcastle he was moved to Holmby, where he had been able to hunt and to entertain, and to attract crowds of subjects anxious to be healed. Removed from Holmby by a tailor with a dubious commission he was kept under guard in his house at Hampton Court. Escaping from there he took off for the Isle of Wight and Carisbrooke Castle, where he was placed under increasingly close guard. In late December an escape by sea from Carisbrooke was thwarted by the direction of the wind, leading to a doubling of his guard. But perhaps most emblematic of these indignities was his attempted escape from Carisbrooke in March the following year. He had planned to climb through his window and jump onto a lawn, where he would meet Sir Henry Firebrace. Firebrace would then hand over a rope which would allow him to drop down from the castle walls, to meet Richard Osborne and Henry Worsley, who would take him to a fishing boat anchored discreetly nearby. Advised to remove the bars from his window, Charles did not, and as a consequence nearly became stuck fast when he tried to climb out. The attempt was abandoned.48 There was an attempt on the part of royalists to turn this to advantage, by portraying the King as a martyr, suffering at the hands of his errant subjects. The image projected by the monarch during the 1630s was the austere and distant patriarch of the Van Dyke portraits. He was now becoming the sacred monarch whose persecution was testament to his faith: in June a parody of George Herbert’s poem ‘Sacrifice’ likened Charles’s sufferings to those of Christ in a style which was to become quite commonplace in royal propaganda.49 His public declarations made a similar case: a well-intentioned monarch, anxious to do good to all parties, was consistently thwarted by errant subjects.

  Charles I in captivity at Carisbrooke Castle

  Although Charles was in the end to suffer, and even embrace, martyrdom, he apparently still harboured hopes of a political triumph. And this is the second powerful image from 1647: these stories of indignity and suffering contrast sharply with Charles’s interest in theatrical displays of regality. In the early months of 1647 Charles had been enthusiastic in touching for the King’s Evil; and many of his people had responded equally enthusiastically. Over the following winter he turned his attention towards the construction of a spectacular royal palace at Whitehall. The plans he eventually approved incorporated the Banqueting House in the river frontage of a huge palace set back from the river and constructed on lines that at least echoed the best royal architecture in Europe. The Banqueting House now fronts onto Whitehall, but this would have become the internal face of a large courtyard in a palace with a long river frontage, 800 or 900 feet (around 250 metres), which stretched 1,100 feet (more than 330 metres) back across St James’s Park. It would have been twice the size of the Escorial, seat of the Spanish monarchy, the most powerful in Europe. It is possible, but not likely, that these drawings represented a rebirth for Inigo Jones. The mastermind of the austere royal masques of the 1630s had been at Basing House, symbol of both loyalty and popery, and had shared fully in the humiliations that followed its capture. In fact, it was almost certainly Jones’s pupil, John Webb, who made the design.50

  At first glance these plans seem delusional, but the political prospects for the monarch might have appeared good. The dissolution of the parliamentary alliance was more or less complete, and the Covenanters now identified the King as the best hope for Presbyterianism, as did many English Presbyterians (although few were willing to fight for him in the following year). As the winter and spring were to demonstrate, tradition had as great a claim on the English people as did their self-proclaimed champions, the Levellers and the army. Armed intervention, the evident attachment of many English people to the idea of monarchy and the disarray of his former English opponents must all have encouraged Charles in the hope that he would soon be restored to his regality. The army, the people and the Scots all seemed less attractive sources of political authority than the crown. Of course, he could not have afforded a palace on this scale, and the importance of the plan was presumably psychological – an imagined future to warm the heart at this moment of indignity. Webb, and this style, were to prosper after the Restoration, but not before and not on this scale. While not perhaps a plan for the real world, then, this was not a mark of incipient madn
ess. In the winter of 1647/8 it still seemed overwhelmingly more likely that a king restored to his regality would construct a sumptuous palace around the Banqueting House than that he would be publicly executed in front of it.

  Plans for a new Whitehall Palace approved by Charles during his captivity at Carisbrooke Castle; they incorporate the Banqueting House into the middle of the right-hand side of the frontage as seen in this elevation

  19

  To Preserve That Which God Hath Manifestly Declared Against

  Charles, the Scots and the Second Civil War

  When the Scottish commissioners left England there had been some preliminary discussion about co-ordinating an invasion with provincial risings in England, but there was no clear plan in place. Their report on the Engagement to the Committee of Estates was well-received, but no further measures were taken prior to the meeting of the Scottish parliament on 2 March. This delay proved fatal to the enterprise, since events in England were moving more quickly. Moreover, the Scottish commitment to the Engagement was not unanimous. Once back in Scotland the commissioners had begun to whip up support for the King, but there were serious concerns that the Engagement was a betrayal. Hamilton, Loudon and others felt that the King had given ample commitments. However, Argyll and others were bitterly opposed and were supported by leading figures in the kirk (the ‘kirkmen’), who felt that Charles, having failed to agree to take the Solemn League and Covenant, had given insufficient commitments on religion. This was after all the same King that had brought Scotland the new Prayer Book, prompting armed resistance. When it met, opinion in Parliament was similarly divided over renewing war in England and the divisions became bitter – in fact, a series of duels were offered. Englishmen keen to renew the conflict travelled to Edinburgh to try to encourage the laggardly Scots, among them notable Cavaliers like Sir Philip Musgrave, Sir Thomas Glemham, Sir Marmaduke Langdale and Sir Charles Lucas. Royalist newsbooks reported that whole districts of England were ripe for revolt, but the Scottish clergy, and the women of Edinburgh and Leith, were said to have ‘cried out’ against a renewal of war. Petitioning campaigns against the invasion were organized by the kirkmen, and this worsened the divisions.1

  There had been hopes of help from Ireland, but they came to nothing. In the summer of 1647 the Confederates had been in a strong military position, although under Rinuccini’s influence they were not particularly eager to intervene in England to support a heretic king. The upshot of the English debate about Ireland during the spring and summer was the landing of an English force under Michael Jones which quickly pushed back the Confederates. The Confederates were defeated at Dungan’s Hill on 8 August, a battle which changed the balance of power, and, on 10 August, Jones entered Dublin in triumph. Inchiquin, commander of parliamentary forces in Munster, also won major and bloody victories during September, eventually reaching the walls of Kilkenny. George Monck had been put in command of the parliamentary forces in Ulster. He had fought for the King in England and, following capture at Nantwich, had preferred imprisonment to changing sides. Following the King’s final defeat in 1646, however, Monck felt free of personal obligation, took the Covenant, and accepted service in Ireland. On 2 October 1647 Jones set out from Dublin to meet Monck, and Inchiquin won another major victory at Mallow on 13 November.

  All this put the Confederates on the defensive by the winter of 1647. But they were not the only potential royalists. Ormond, strongly opposed to the Confederate programme and Rinuccini’s influence, was nonetheless loyal to the King. For that reason he was willing to pursue peace with the Confederates, and he was joined by Inchiquin, commander of the parliamentary forces in Ireland, who ‘changed sides’ in March 1648. He was upset by the Vote of No Addresses and drawn towards the Scottish/royalist coalition in favour of Presbyterianism and a relatively powerful monarchy. Although Inchiquin was sufficiently disillusioned with the parliamentary regime to throw in his lot with Ormond, however, he did not take all his men with him. Rinuccini, meanwhile, was extremely hostile to the compromises necessary to forge this proto-alliance and pronounced excommunication on all those who co-operated with Ormond and Inchiquin. For a time though, in the spring of 1648, a menacing royalist alliance of Irish and Scottish forces had seemed to be taking shape.2

  In England royalist hopes rested on an apparently rising tide of hostility to the parliamentary regime. The failure to settle, the continuing burden of the army, and fear of social and religious radicalism all fed impatience with those in control in London. These were hard times: a second bad harvest in succession made for a ‘sad, dear time’ for the poor in Essex, where ‘money [was] almost out of the country’. In Wiltshire there were food riots and attacks on soldiers and excisemen at Chippenham on New Year’s Eve.3 These miscellaneous discontents were the basis for mobilizing support, as in 1642; but, as in 1642, it was not clear that any of the national platforms really addressed them.

  The festive calendar was a powerful focus for political mobilization. In Kent there was opposition to the reformed liturgy and in many places worship continued according to the Prayer Book. During 1647 the county committee heard reports of ‘sundry seditious sermons’ and ‘dangerous speeches… darkly implying threats against the parliament and a course to be taken with the Roundheads about Christmas’. As a result they took a hard line, publishing an order throughout the county underlining the prohibition of Christmas celebrations. This proved badly misjudged. One minister’s sermon was protected by armed men at the door of the church, and when the mayor of Canterbury ordered that the market should stay open only twelve shopkeepers complied. They were told to shut up again ‘by the multitude’, and when they did not their goods were ‘thrown up and down’. In the ensuing melee the sheriff was ‘stoutly resisted’ and the mayor knocked down. Despite his torn and dirty gown the mayor commanded everyone to go home, and those who resisted were briefly imprisoned. But only briefly – they soon broke out and were jeering at the aldermen. Shortly afterwards some of the leaders, along with some soldiers, appeared on the high street with two footballs. Joined by large crowds the football game quickly became a tumultuous demonstration, surging through the streets to cries of ‘Conquest’. Holly bushes were set up at doorways and free entertainment offered. The gaol was opened, aldermen chased and beaten into their houses and Richard Culmer, the Puritan minister, pelted with mud.4

  Over the weekend Canterbury became the focus for a wider protest as people from surrounding parishes flocked into the town. On Monday a heated argument with ‘a busy prating’ Puritan led to pistol shots and cries of ‘Murder’. Crowds surged through the town, calling out ‘For God, King Charles, and Kent’. The sheriff, trying to keep the peace, was knocked down, receiving a serious head injury in the process. Windows were broken in the houses of the mayor and other prominent men, and some of the godly ministers and members of the accounts committee were assaulted, imprisoned and ‘laid in irons’. Worse, the city magazine was seized, and there were reports of similar, smaller riots elsewhere in the county. This was quickly becoming a pro-royalist rising: when news arrived of the King’s attempted escape from Carisbrooke on 29 December a number of gentry were reported to have openly declared their willingness to support the King and the Engagers. Their aim, they said, was to ‘release the King’s Majesty out of thraldom and misery,… restore him to his just rights,… and… endeavour the preservation of the honourable constitution of parliament… and all the just privileges thereof’.5

  In the event the county committee was able to muster sufficient support to re-establish control in Canterbury. Elsewhere, however, festive pastimes became a means of expressing political dissent. A hurling match between the men of Devon and Cornwall was thought to be a pretext for anti-army action. In Bury St Edmunds on May Day a crowd gathered around a maypole or May bush as a troop of Fairfax’s cavalry rode into town. The soldiers were attacked to cries of ‘For God and King Charles’, before the gates were shut, streets barricaded and the magazine secured. There followed atta
cks on parliamentarians by a crowd containing 600 armed men and another hundred on horseback. The rising was contained by a ring of five troops of horse around the town, but it did not stop other protesters gathering at Newmarket ‘under pretence of horseracing’.6 The anniversary of Charles’s accession, 27 March, was another focus for discontent. In Norwich the mayor permitted bonfires and feasting to mark the occasion, and refused a summons to attend Parliament to explain himself. On 24 April a crowd gathered in his support seized the headquarters of the Norfolk county committee, which was also the county magazine. When troops arrived to take back the building the magazine blew up, killing more than a hundred people.7

  London was not immune. On 17 July 1647, a week before the Presbyterian assault on London, with tensions reaching a crisis point, the theatres had been closed down, reviving an ordinance of 1642 passed in similar circumstances. The measure lapsed on 1 January 1648, probably by oversight, and theatre owners and patrons took full advantage. On 27 January 120 coaches were said to have delivered customers to the Fortune Theatre alone. On 11 February the theatres were closed once more – a traditional measure of crowd control and probably therefore a sign more of security concerns than of Puritan hostility to pleasure. On the anniversary of Charles’s accession bonfires were lit across the City and those passing along the streets in coaches were compelled to drink the King’s health. There were shouts both for the King and against Hammond, his keeper. Butchers were apparently saying that if they caught Hammond ‘they would chop him as small as ever they chopped any of their meat’. On Sunday, 9 April, during afternoon service, the Lord Mayor sent a party of Trained Band members to stop boys playing tip-cat (a relatively harmless bat and ball game) in Moorfields. A crowd of apprentices intervened, pelting the men with stones and disarming them. Now armed they marched along Fleet Street and the Strand, attracting a crowd of 3,000 or 4,000, raising shouts of ‘Now for King Charles’. Their target was a regiment in Whitehall, but they happened to pass Cromwell and Ireton at the head of cavalry regiments. Cromwell led a charge along the Strand in which two of the crowd either were killed or were nearly so. During the following night apprentices secured the gates at Newgate and Ludgate, and attacked the house of the Lord Mayor. By 8 a.m. they controlled the City, and were only finally subdued when a regiment of foot and four troops of horse were let into the City at Moorgate. Onlookers appeared more sympathetic to the rioters than to the troops sent to restore order.8