Part 10 (2/2)

From his quarters at Maidenhead Rupert seized on Colebrook; an exploit reported in London under the exciting t.i.tle, ”Horrible news from Colebrook.” In the same pamphlets the already terrified citizens were cheered by the news: ”The Prince hath deeply vowed that he will come to London; swearing he cares not a pin for all the Roundheads or their infant works; and saying that he will {98} lay their city and inhabitants on the ground.”[35] On November 4th, the King reached Reading with the bulk of his army, and the Parliament, thoroughly frightened, requested a safe-conduct, in order to treat. The King's objection to one of their emissaries led to some delay, but danger pressed; the Parliament yielded and sent its representatives. At the same time it ordered Ess.e.x, who had also reached London, to take the field. The King on his part advanced to Colebrook before he sent his answer;--which was a proposal that Windsor should be given up to him as a place for treaty, and avoided all mention of a cessation of arms. On the same night, November 11th, he ordered Rupert to clear the way by an attack on Brentford. At the same time he wrote to the Houses that he intended to be in London next evening to hear what they had to say.

The Prince received the King's orders at Egham. There he had captured two London merchants, and he judged it wise to detain them, lest they should be spies. When they had recovered their liberty next day, they gave the following account of their adventures. They had been taken to the Prince, who was ”in bed with all his clothes on,” from which it was inferred that he had vowed never to undress ”or s.h.i.+ft himself until he had reseated King Charles at Whitehall.” The Prince examined the prisoners himself, and, attracted by a bunch of ribbons in the hat of one of them, ”he took the pains to look them over himself, and turned and tossed them up and down, and swore there was none of the King's favours there. The gentleman replying that they were the favours of his mistress, the Prince smiling, without any word at all, returned him his favours and his hat again.” On the next morning they saw the King and Prince together on Hounslow Heath. ”Prince Rupert took off his scarlet coat, which was very rich, and gave it to his man; and he buckled {99} on his arms and put a grey coat over it that he might not be discovered. He talked long with the King, and often in his communications with His Majesty, he scratched his head and tore his hair, as if in some grave discontent.”[36]

The discontent was soon allayed by a successful dash upon Brentford.

The town was taken, though not without hard fighting, and there was captured also a good supply of guns and ammunition. The question as to whether this advance, pending negotiation, was or was not a breach of faith on the King's part has been much debated. No cessation of arms had been agreed on, but the Parliament, thinking it a mere oversight, had sent again in order to arrange it. At the same time Ess.e.x was warned to hold all his forces ready for battle, but to abstain from acts of hostility. Ess.e.x having advanced towards him, the King would have been completely surrounded, had he not seized upon Brentford.

Therefore, from the military point of view, the advance was altogether justifiable; from the political, it was unwise, for it lost Charles the hearts of the Londoners. ”Charles's error,” says Professor Gardiner, ”lay in forgetting that he was more than a victorious General.”[37]

The King's triumph was short-lived. The citizens and the Parliamentary troops rallied to the defence of the capital. An army, twice as large as that of Charles, barred his way on Turnham Green. Ess.e.x advancing on Brentford, forced Rupert to retire. This he did in excellent order, entrusting the conduct of the retreat to Sir Jacob Astley. The Prince himself stood his horse in the river beside the bridge that he might watch his men pa.s.s over. And there he remained for hours, exposed to a heavy fire, and all the while ”cheering and encouraging the retiring ranks to keep order, and to fire steadily on the advancing foe.”[38]

His troops pa.s.sed that night drawn up on Hounslow Heath; {100} thence Rupert conducted them to Abingdon, himself returning, November 22nd, to the King at Reading.

At Reading they were detained some days by the illness of the Prince of Wales, but on Tuesday, the 29th, the King took up his winter quarters in Oxford. Rupert continued to hover about Ess.e.x's army, and ordered Wilmot to take Marlborough. This duty Wilmot accomplished, but with evident reluctance. ”Give me leave to tell your Highness that I think myself very unhappy to be employed upon this occasion,” he wrote, ”being a witness that at other times, in the like occasions, troops are sent out without any manner of forecast or design, or care to preserve or quarter them when they are abroad.”[39] It is not remarkable that Rupert did not love an officer who addressed him in such a strain. Sir John Byron also wrote with ill-concealed impatience to demand his instant removal from Reading, where, he said, the want of accommodation was ruining his regiment. And Daniel O'Neil sent pathetic accounts of his struggles with the Prince's own troop, in the absence of their leader. ”They say you have given them a power to take what they want, where they can find it. This is so extravagant that I am confident you never gave them any such. That the rest of the troop (not only of your own regiment, but that of the Lieutenant-General) may be satisfied, declare in what condition you will have your company, and how commanded. And let me, I beseech you, have in writing the orders I shall give to that party you sent into Buckinghams.h.i.+re.”[40] Already numberless such complaints were pouring in. Even then the Royalists, as Byron said, ”abounded in nothing but the want of all things necessary;” and Rupert was well-nigh distracted by his efforts to supply their needs, quash their mutinies, and soothe their discontents.

So closed the year 1642.

[1] Clar. Hist. Bk. VI. p. 1.

[2] Ibid. VI. 21.

[3] Rupert Transcripts. Digby to Prince, Sept. 10, 1642.

[4] Dom. State Papers. Wharton to Willingham, 13 Sept. 1642.

[5] Rupert to Mayor of Leicester. Warburton, I. p. 393.

[6] Vicars' G.o.d in the Mount, pp. 155-157.

[7] Verney Memoirs, Vol. II. p. 160.

[8] Plot's Hist. of Staffords.h.i.+re, Ch. 9, p. 336. Hudibras, ed. 1810.

I. p. 156, _note_.

[9] Warburton, I. p. 409. Falkland, 28 Sept. 1642.

[10] Clarendon. Hist. Bk. VI. 44-46. Dom. S. P. 13 Sept. 1642

[11] Webb Civil War in Herefords.h.i.+re. Vol. I. p. 131. 20 Sept. 1642.

[12] Dom. State Papers. Chas. I. Vol. 492. fol. 31. 6 Oct. 1642.

[13] Carte, Original Letters. Vol. I. p. 47. 8 Mar. 1643.

[14] Whitelocke. p. 101.

[15] Green. VI. 11.

[16] Warburton: II. p. 196.

[17] Pamphlet. Brit. Museum. Prince Rupert: his Disguises.

[18] Clarendon. Bk. VI. 75.

[19] King to Rupert. Warburton. II. p. 12.

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