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Historical Preface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

IT is a mere truism in the history of revolutions to assert that they are seldom brought to a close by the persons or political parties with whom they originate. Men whose existence was perhaps scarcely known to the world at large when the onward movement took its origin rise in succession to the surface, acquire the government, and carry forward the work to lengths and heights which their predecessors never contemplated. It is in tracing this sequence of political parties, the gradual growth of what was looked upon in the first instance as a contemptible and almost senseless faction, its struggles for the mastery, the arts (too often unworthy) by which it acquired the ascendancy, its acts whilst in a condition of dominancy, and finally the errors by which it forfeited power and made way for the next in turn, that much of the interest of historical narrative is found.

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Preface
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1875

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References

page vi note a Mr. Brace's references here are to Rushworth, v. 732–736; Clarendon, 514 et seq. (ed. 1843); and, perhaps, under the name of “Memoir-writers,“to Baillie, ii. 229–30, 234–5, 244–7; Whitlocke, i. 343 et seq. (ed. 1853) ; Walker's History of Independency, part i.; and Holles's Memoirs, 18–28. Baillie's jottings on the subject are, however, strictly contemporary.—D.M.

page vi note b Among modern accounts of the quarrel between Cromwell and Manchester are Godwin's in his History of the Commonwealth (i. 378–413) and Mr. Carlyle's in his Letters and Speeches of Cromwell (i. 146–150, and 159–163, ed. 1857). Godwin does found only on the authorities mentioned by Mr. Bruce; but Mr. Carlyle had before him other documents, communicated to him by the Duke of Manchester from the family papers at Kimbolton, inclnding that printed in the present volume under the title ” Narrative of the Earl of Manchester's Campaign.”—D.M.

page vii note a Clarendon, Hist. Rebell. p. 73, ed. 1843.

page vii note b Ibid. p. 22.

page vii note c Ibid. p. 73.

page vii note d Ibid. p. 74.

page ix note a Fought on Sunday, October 23, 1642, near Keinton in South Warwickshire, the first important battle of the Civil War. The Parliament had, on the whole, the victory, though not a very decided one. Among the slain was Robert Bertie, Earl of Lindsey, commander-in-chief of the King's army.—D.M.

page xiv note a The two extracts from the Commons Journals are not directly on my part from the Journals themselves, but from those sheets of miscellaneous MS. jottings, left by Mr. Bruce in connection with his unfinished Preface, which seem to me to prove that he meant, in completing his Preface, to make some such insertions and additions as have now to be made for him.—D.M.

page xiv note b A story told by Clarendon in his Life (p. 936, ed. 1843) is worth noting here. Shortly after the meeting of the Long Parliament, and when Cromwell was a comparatively unknown man in it, a question of private grievance came before the House of Commons, relating to an inclosure of waste lands in the Eastern Counties. As the lands had been acquired by the old Earl of Manchester, Lord Privy Seal, it was his interest and that of his son, then Viscount Mandeville or Lord Kimbolton, to maintain the inclosure: the complainants, on the other hand, were tenant farmers in the district. Some of them had come up to town as witnesses ; and in a private committee of the House on the subject Cromwell distinguished himself by marshalling the witnesses, seconding their statements, and seeing them get fair play. He was so “tempestuous” in his behaviour on the occasion that Mr. Hyde, who was chairman (i.e. Clarendon himself), had to call him to order and threaten to report him to the House. In especial he was “rude” to Lord Mandeville. “When, upon any matter of fact or the proceeding before and at the inclosure, the Lord Mandeville desired to be heard, and with great modesty related what had been done or explained what had been said, Mr. Cromwell did answer and reply upon him wtth so much indecency and rudeness, and in language so contrary and offensive, that every man would have thought that, as their natures and their manners were as opposite as it is possible, so their interest could never have been the same.” Mandeville himself, now Earl of Manchester, does not seem to have remembered this encounter with Mr. Cromwell half so bitterly as Mr. Hyde did for him.—D.M.

page xv note a I find this extract from the Commons Journals in Mr. Brace's miscellaneous jottings, and I copy it from them.—DM.

page xvi note a See Rushworth, v. 108–109, and p. x. ante.—D.M.

page xvi note b Rushworth, v. 280.—D.M.

page xvi note c Carlyle's Cromwell, i. 146, ed. 1857.—D.M.

page xvii note a This quotation from the Commons Journals is from Mr. Brace's own jottings.—D.M.

page xvii note b In Mr. Bruce's miscellaneous jottings I find several extracts from the Lords Journals relating to Willoughby's dispute with Manchester. They need not be reproduced here ; but they show Mr. Bruce's care in collecting materials for the perfection of his Preface.—D.M.

page xviii note a This incident also had been noted by Mr. Bruce, probably for use in his Preface had he perfected it. I find among his jottings several extracts from the Commons Journals, from Jnly to Sept. 1643 inclusively, relating to the proposition of a separate command for Sir William Waller and to Essex's reluctance in the matter from personal pride or from jealousy of Waller. At length, it is reported (Sept. 28), Essex is pacified, and handsomely assures the House that he “will begin upon a new score, and give Waller the best encouragement he can.”—D.M.

page xix note a Rushworth, v. 621.—D.M.

page xx note a Hist, of Own Time, i. 167, ed. 1823. Baillie terms the Earl “a swaet, meek man.”—Letters, ii. 229.

page xxii note a Douglas's Baronage of Scotland, i. 430. From Crawford himself we learn that he joined Manchester's army in February 1643–4: see his narrative among the documents in this volume, p. 59. Care must be taken not to confound this “Major-General Laurence Crawford” with another Scottish “Crawford,“who will appear in the course of the story.—D.M.

page xxii note a Carlyle's Cromwell, i. 150, ed. 1857. —D.M.

page xxiv note a Carlyle's Cromwell, i. 201. ed. 1846 [i. 147–148, ed. 1857.]

page xxv note a Somewhat too strongly stated. There was a considerable number of persons in England in 1644, including some politicians and some divines, who had conceived as wide and just ideas of toleration as any that have been generally admitted since ; and Cromwell was but the most conspicuous public head of these, and their most emphatic spokesman.—D.M.

page xxv note b Baillie's Letters, ii. 229.

page xxv note c Mr. Bruce seems here to anticipate a little. At the date at which we now are (March 1644), it cannot be said that the strife between Cromwell and Manchester had begun, but only that an influence leading to strife had been introduced between them in the person of Crawford. In that letter of Cromwell's from which Bruce has qnoted (see the whole of it in Carlyle's Cromwell, i. 147–8, ed. 1857) there is no sign of any idea on the part of Cromwell that Manchester would have differed from him, or sided with Crawford, in the case of Packer. Manchester was then too busy, he says, with the University Visitation to hear what Packer had to say in selfdefence ; but it seems to be implied that Cromwell, in writing the letter, could assume that he and Manchester would be of one mind on the “Anabaptist” objection. Not till afterwards, when gradually Crawford had acquired his “great hand” with Manchester, is there- any reason for characterising Manchester as “strong against” those Toleratipn opinions of Cromwell which, till Crawford's advent, he seems to have abetted, or at least allowed to Cromwell in the recruiting and officering of the Ironsides. Possibly, however, his recent sittings in the Westminster Assembly, and his communications with that body in the business of new appointments in the University, may have given him a turn already towards Presbyterian strictness, and so prepared the way for Crawford's insinuations against Cromwell.—D.M.

page xxxiii note a Mr. Bruce is not absolutely right in describing the doctrine of Toleration that had appeared in English society in 1644 as merely “the first ray of the fuller light that has since risen upon ourselves.” There were very various grades of the doctrine even then; and, though most of the respectable people who advocated Toleration did only mean “a modified toleration of sectaries within a certain pale,” there were some thinkers whose notions of Toleration were as wide and exceptionless as any that have since been known. Indeed Voluntaryism in its utmost extreme, as denying the right of the civil power to establish, endow, patronise, or in any way favour any form of religious belief, or interfere with any mis-belief or no-belief, was then a proclaimed speculation.—D.M.

page xxxviii note a Baillie, ii. 146.—D.M.

page xxxix note a Baillie, ii. 170.—D.M.

page xl note a I find among Mr. Bruce's papers of jottings extracts from the Lords and Commons Journals of April and May 1644 referring more particularly to Essex's remonstrances about the independent power given to the Earl of Manchester. This is one more proof of Mr Bruce's industry in collecting materials for enlarging and completing his Preface.—D.M.

page xli note a Rushworth, v. 620–622.—D.M.

page xli note b See Crawford's own ex parte “narrative” in the Documents in this volume (pp. 69–60); and connect therewith this passage in Baillie of date May 19th, 1644: “We are advertised that much more than the most part of my Lord Manchester's army are reduced to Independency, and very many of them have added either Anabaptism or Antinomianism, or both.”—Baillie, ii. 185.—D.M.

page xlii note a Rushworth, v. 631.—D.M.

page xlii note b See letter of Baillie of date June 1644, ii. 195.—D.M.

page xlii note c The best account we have is that of Mr. Sandford in his Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion, 8vo. 1858, a most valuable book. [See a later paper on the subject, entitled “A Visit to Marston Moor,” by the late Mr. Herman Meriyale, in Macmillan's Magazine for July 1862.—D.M.]

page xliii note a Baillie, ii. 203–201.—D.M.

page xliv note a Baillie, ii. 208–209.—D.M.

page xliv note b Ibid. 211.—D.M.

page xliv note c Ibid. 218.—D.M.

page xlv note a Rushworth, v. 605, and note by Mr. David Laing to Baillie, ii. 218. See note in this Preface, ante, p. xxii. It is very natural to confound this “Sheldon Crawford” with “Major-General Crawford,” the rather as the major-general afterwards made accusations against Cromwell like those in the text, or worse. Godwin and other writers have made the mistake.—D.M

page xlvi note a Letter Book of the Committee of Both Kingdoms under those dates.

page xlvi note b Letters received by the Committee 22nd July, 1644.

page xlvi note c Ibid. 27th July, 1644.

page xlvii note a i.e. with baggage or things to be carried; the same sense in which the word is used in the authorised translation of Acts [xxi. 15].

page xlvii note b Letter Book of the Committee under the date.

page xlvii note c Dragoons.

page xlviii note a Letter Book of Letters received by the Committee under date.

page xlix note a Perhaps the most famous of these was Charles's visit to Welbeck on his way to Scotland in the summer of 1633 for his coronation there. Part of the entertainment consisted in the performance of Love's Welcome, a masque by Ben Jonson, written for the occasion.—D.M.

page l note a Dated 3rd July, 1644.

page l note b Husband, 516.

page li note a Book of Loiters received by the Committee, under date of 6th August, 1644. [See Documents, pp. 5, 7.]

page lii note a Book of Letters sent under date of 6th August, 1644. [Documents, pp. 4–5.]

page liii note a [Documents of Manchester's Correspondence, pp. 8–12.]

page lv note a Carlyle's Cromwell, i. 157, ed. 1857.

page lvii note a Rnshworth, v. 642–645.

page lviii note a The passages of Cromwell's narrative and of Crawford's more particularly founded on in this paragraph will be found at pp. 78–83 and pp. 60–62 of the appended Documents.

page lx note a See the Letter, Rush worth, v. 719, 720.

page lxi note a Baillie, ii. 229–230.

page lxi note b Ibid. 230.

page lxiv note a Although the Committee of the two Kingdoms at Derby House was really the authorised organ of Parliament in war matters and its missives were in eifect orders from Parliament, it is worth noting that the House of Commons itself took notice of Manchester's dilatoriness at this time. Among Mr. Bruce's jottings of material for the continuation of his Preface I find two extracts from the Commons Journals illustrating this fact. On the 8th of October, à propos of a petition from the Committee of the county of Norfolk representing the danger to which that county and others of the Eastern Association were liable “from the moving of the Associated Forces so far westward,” the House ordered “That the Earl of Manchester do march with his forces forthwith into the West, for the safety of the public, and consequently of each particular county, according to the direction of the Committee of both Kingdoms; and that this House will take care of the safety of the county of Norfolk and the other Associated Counties in like manner as they will of the rest of the kingdom ; And it is referred to the Committee of both Kingdoms to take care herein, and to send this order to the Earl of Manchester.” It Was duly sent the same day (see1 No. 46 of the Correspondence); and Manchester, in his reply to the Committee next day (No. 47), notices the fact rather tetchily, thus: “I have often received orders from the House of Commons for my marching westward; but they never designed any place to which I should march.” This must have been communicated to the House; for, on the 10th of October, there was a report there on the whole subject of the correspondence between the Earl and the Committee, with a significant note that the first letter to him asking him to expedite his march into the West had been as far back as August 27th, and the House then renewed its order that he should advance and join with the Lord General's and Sir William Waller's forces, referring it to the Derby House Committee to appoint the places of rendezvous. The Committee did not fix the place themselves, but instructed Manchester to communicate with the Lord General on the subject (Nos. 48 and 49); and it came at last to be Basingstoke. In contrast with the entries in the Commons Journals at this date relating to Manchester are those relating to Cromwell. They are about a supply of “pistols and holsters,” with “heads,” “backs,” and “breasts,” which Cromwell wanted for his own regiment, and about the mode of raising money for the same. It is rather interesting to note that the person charged with seeing them sent down to Cromwell is Colonel Walton.

page lxv note a Rushworth, v. 721–730, and Nos. 59–68 of Manchester's Correspondence.

page lxvi note a He was a member of the Committee of both Kingdoms, had been present at the Battle of Newbury, and had just been sent to town by Manchester, Waller, and Sir William Balfour, as joint commanders, to give the Committee “a right understanding” of the Donnington Castle business. (See No. 68 of Correspondence.)

page lxviii note a Rushworth, v. 732.

page lxviii note b I cannot agree with the opinion expressed in the last footnote to Cromwell's Narrative (p. 95), that the “terseness and perspicuity” of the document are qualities that must have been imparted to it by those who assisted him in drawing it up. In any document in the preparation of which Cromwell took pai't I should say that the tersest and most emphatic parts, and essentially the most perspicuous, were always his. Substantially and throughout, this Narrative appears to me to be Cromwell's own, with .suggestions from Il'nsclrig, and perhaps from Waller.

page lxxiii note a These extracts from the Lords Journals I take from Mr. Brace's MS. collection of materials for his preface; and I have not thought it necessary, with his careful copies before me, to refer to the originals. I adhere to the copies even where they keep the faulty grammar of the original, only translating the usual Comes of the Journals into “Earl,” or the like.

page lxxvi note a P. 18, as quoted in Parl. Hist. iii. 349.

page lxxvii note a Baillie, ii. 245.

page lxxx note a Whitlocke, ed. 1853, i. 343–348.

page lxxiv note a In Manchester's exculpation of himself to the Lords, he also makes a strongpoint of Cromwell's voluntary burst in his defence on the occasion here mentioned by Crawford : “And I must acknowledge that Lieutenant-General Cromwell was sensible of a contradiction in this particular; as, when there was but an information of such a report cast out of London that I had acted without the advice of the Council of War, he professed that he was a villain and a liar that should affirm any such thing.” It is clear that something of the kind must have happened, however it is to be reconciled with what followed. Crawford's farther statement, that Cromwell himself was the draftsman of a letter in the name of the commanders jointly to the Committee of both Kingdoms explaining the whole state of matters, does not appear in the Earl's own narrative. If such a letter still exists, it might be important. Mr. Bruce's collection of copies from the correspondence of the Committee of both Kingdoms contains no such thing. It stops at No. 69, the letter which so much vexed Manchester.

page lxxvi note a The writer of this queer statement might perhaps, by some search, be yet identified. Can he have been the “Captain Arminger“mentioned in Crawford's Narrative as one of the officers in Manchester's army opposed to Cromwell and Independency (p. 60), and who was “outed” by Cromwell just after the march from Lincoln had begun (p. 61)? If so, can this “Captain Arminger,” by some error of transcript, be the same as the “Captain Margery” of whom we hear in two of Cromwell's letters of September 1643 (Carlyle's Cromwell, ed. 1857, i. pp. 134–5 and 139–141), when he and Cromwell were still on friendly terms ?

page lxxvii note a As before, Mr. Bruce's MS. copies are my authorities for these entries in the Journals of the Houses.

page lxxix note a Carlylo's Cromwell, ed. 1857, i. 160–162.

page lxxix note b Baillie, ii. 247

page xcii note a As before, these extracts from the Journals are supplied me by Mr. Brace's collection of MS. memoranda. I observe, however, that he has omitted the following entry, which occurs in the Journals immediately before the last paragraph he has quoted:—“Ordered, That the Committee where Mr. Tate has the chair do examine who was the author, printer, and divulger of the book which bears the name of Mr. Simeon Ashe, a minister, and is concerning the business of Newbury and Donnington, and likewise to consider of the particular carriages about the printing and divulging of that book, or the publishing any matter contained therein.” This book or pamphlet by Ashe, Manchester's chaplain, might be worth looking after.

page xciv note a Godwin, in his History of the Commonwealth (i. 403–405), finds an explanation of the changed mood of the Scottish Commissioners in the fact that the Marquis of Argyle, the supreme man of the Scottish Kingdom, and a more subtle and far-seeing politician than any of the rest, had come to London at this crisis. He founds on apassage in Clarendon (p. 541, ed. 1843), where it is said:—“The Marquis of Argyle was now come from Scotland, and sat with the Commissioners of that kingdom. … From the time of his coming to the town, the Scottish Commissioners were less vehement in obstructing the Ordinance or the New Modelling of the Army.” This, however, is one of Clarendon's hallucinations. Argyle's name was certainly included in the safe conduct given by the King at Oxford, January 21, 1644–5, for those Commissioners from the Parliament and from the Scots that were to treat at Uxbridge; but he never appeared there. He was detained in Scotland by the necessity of opposing the terrible Montrose. His defeat at Inverlochy, the greatest disaster of his military life, was on February 2 ; and he was in Edinburgh, with the disaster on his mind, for some weeks afterwards. When he did come to London sixteen months later, the opening words of his speech before a Committee of the two English Houses (June 26, 1646) were these:—“Though I have had the honour to be named by the Kingdom of Scotland in all the Commissions which had relation to this Kingdom [of England] since the beginning of the war, yet I had never the happiness to be with your lordships till now.”

page xcvii note a Clarendon, ed. 1843, p. 1,006 (Life).