Friends, though divided: A Tale of the Civil War by G. A. Henty (ebook voice reader .txt) 📕

of the Parliament. Others were for dispersing the bands, and awaiting a better opportunity for a rising. Sir Charles Lucas, however, urged that they should defend Colchester to the last.

"Here," he said, "we are doing good service to the Royal cause, and by detaining Fairfax here, we shall give time to our friends in Wales, Kent, and other parts to rise and organize. If it is seen that whenever we meet the Roundheads we disperse at once, hope and confidence will be lost."

The next day the town was invested by Fairfax, and shortly after the siege began in earnest. The Royalists fought with great bravery, and for two months every attempt of the Roundheads to storm the place was repulsed. At length, however, supplies ran short, several breaches had been made in the walls by the Roundhead artillery, and a council of war was held, at which it was decided that further resistance was useless, and would only inflict a great slaughter upon their followers, who, in the event of surrender, would for the most part be permitted to return to their homes. Harry Furness was present at the council and agreed to the decision. He said, however, that he would endeavor, with his two personal followers, to effect his escape, as, if he were taken a prisoner to London, he should be sure to be recognized there as the leader of the rising in May, in which case he doubted not that little mercy would be shown to him. The Royalist leaders agreed with him, but pointed out that his chances of escape were small, as the town was closely beleaguered. Harry, however, declared that he preferred the risk of being shot while endeavoring to escape, to the certainty of being executed if carried to London.

That night they procured some bladders, for although Jacob and Harry were able to swim, William Long could not do so, and in any case it was safer to float than to swim. The bladders were blown out and their necks securely fastened. The three adventurers were then lowered from the wall by ropes, and having fastened the bladders around them, noiselessly entered the water. A numerous flotilla of ships and boats of the Commons lay below the town; the tide was running out, however, and the night dark, and keeping hold of each other, so as not to be separated by the tide, they drifted through these unobserved. Once safely out of hearing, Jacob and Harry struck out and towed their companion to shore. While at Colchester they had been attired as Royalist officers, but they had left these garments behind them, and carried, strapped to their shoulders, above water, the countrymen's clothes in which they had entered the town. They walked as far as Brentwood, where they stopped for a few days, and learned the news of what was passing throughout the country.

Colchester surrendered on the 27th of August, the morning after they left it. Lord Capel was sent a prisoner to London to be tried for his life; but Fairfax caused Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle to be tried by court-martial, and shot. On the 10th of July the town and castle of Pembroke had surrendered to Cromwell, who immediately afterward marched north to meet the Scotch army, which six days before had entered England. The Duke of Hamilton, who commanded it, was at once joined by five thousand English Royalists under Sir Marmaduke Langdale. General Lambert, who commanded the Parliamentary troops in the north, fell back to avoid a battle until Cromwell could join him.

The Scotch army could not be called a national force. The Scotch Parliament, influenced by the Duke of Hamilton and others, had entered into an agreement with King Charles, and undertook to reinstate him on the throne. The more violent section, headed by Argyll, were bitterly hostile to the step. The Duke of Hamilton's army, therefore, consisted entirely of raw and undisciplined troops. Cromwell marched with great speed through Wales to Gloucester, and then on through Leicester and Nottingham, and joined Lambert at Barnet Castle on the 12th of August. Then he marched against the Scotch army, which, straggling widely and thinking Cromwell still at a distance, was advancing toward Manchester. On the 16th the duke with his advanced guard was at Preston, with Langdale on his left. Cromwell attacked Langdale with his whole force next morning, and the Royalists after fighting stoutly were entirely defeated. Then he fell upon the Duke of Hamilton and the force under him at Preston, and after four hours' sharp fighting in the inclosures round the place, defeated and drove them out of the town. That night the Scots determined to retreat, and at once began to scatter. General Baillie, after some hard fighting around Warrington, surrendered with his division. The duke with three thousand men went to Nantwich. The country was hostile, his own troops, wearied and dispirited, mutinied, and declared they would fight no longer; the Duke of Hamilton thereupon surrendered, the Scotch invasion of England came to an end.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE EXECUTION OF KING CHARLES.

The news of the failure of the Welsh insurrection and the Scotch invasion, while the risings in Kent and Essex were crushed out, showed Harry Furness that, for the time at least, there was no further fighting to be done. Cromwell, after the defeat of the Scotch, marched with his army to Edinburgh, where he was received with enthusiasm by Argyll and the fanatic section, who were now again restored to power, and recommenced a cruel persecution of all suspected of Royalist opinions. Now that the Scotch had been beaten, and the Royalist rising everywhere crushed out, the Parliament were seized with fear as to the course which Cromwell and his victorious army might pursue. If they had been so arrogant and haughty before, what might not be expected now. Negotiations were at once opened with the king. He was removed from Carisbrook to a good house at Newport. Commissioners came down there, and forty days were spent in prolonged argument, and the commissioners returned to London on the 28th of November with a treaty signed. It was too late. The army stationed at St. Albans sent in a remonstrance to Parliament, calling upon them to bring the king to trial, and stating that if Parliament neglected its duty the army would take the matter into its own hands. This remonstrance caused great excitement in the Commons. No steps were taken upon it however, and the Commons proceeded to discuss the treaty, and voted that the king's concessions were sufficient. On the 29th a body of soldiers went across to the Isle of Wight, surrounded the king's house, seized him and carried him to Hurst Castle. The next day Parliament voted that they would not debate the remonstrance of the army, and in reply the army at Windsor marched on the 2d of December into London. On the 5th the Commons debated all day upon the treaty.

Prynne, formerly one of the stanchest opposers of King Charles, spoke with others strongly in his favor, and it was carried by a hundred and twenty-nine to thirty-eight. The same day some of the leaders of the army met, and determined to expel from the house all those opposed to their interests. On the 7th the Trained Bands of the city were withdrawn from around the House, and Colonel Pride with his regiment of foot surrounded it. As the members arrived forty-one of them were turned back. The same process was repeated on the two following days, until over a hundred members had been arrested. Thus the army performed a revolution such as no English sovereign has dared to carry out. After this it is idle to talk of the Parliament as in any way representing the English people. The representatives who supported the king had long since left it. The whole of the moderate portion of those who had opposed him, that is to say, those who had fought to support the liberties of Englishmen against encroachments by the king, and who formed the majority after the Royalists had retired, were now expelled; there remained only a small body of fanatics devoted to the interests of the army, and determined to crush out all liberties of England under its armed heel. This was the body before whom the king was ere long to undergo the mockery of a trial.

King Charles was taken to Hurst Castle on the 17th of December, and three days later carried to Windsor. On the 2d of January, 1649, the Commons voted that in making war against the Parliament the king had been guilty of treason, and should be tried by a court of a hundred and fifty commissioners. The Peers rejected the bill, and the Commons then voted that neither the assent of the Peers nor the king was necessary for a law passed by themselves.

All the encroachments of King Charles together were as nothing to this usurpation of despotic power.

In consequence of the conduct of the Peers, the number of commissioners was reduced to a hundred and thirty-five; but of these only sixty-nine assembled at the trial. Thus the court which was to try the king consisted only of those who were already pledged to destroy him. Before such a court as this there could be but one end to the trial. When, after deciding upon their sentence, the king was brought in to hear it, the chief commissioner told him that the charges were brought against him in the name of the people of England, when Lady Fairfax from the gallery cried out, "It's a lie! Not one-half of them." Had she said not one hundredth of them, she would have been within the mark.

On the 27th sentence was pronounced. On the 29th the court signed the sentence, which was to be carried out on the following day.

From the time when Harry Furness left Brentwood at the end of August until the king was brought to London, he had lived quietly at Southampton. He feared to return home, and chose this port as his residence, in order that he might, if necessary, cross into France at short notice. When the news came that the king had been brought up from Windsor, Harry and his friends at once rode to London, Every one was so absorbed in the great trial about to take place that Harry had little fear of attracting attention or of being molested should any one recognize in the young gentleman in sober attire the rustic who had led the rising in the spring. To London, too, came many other Cavaliers from all parts of the country, eager to see if something might not be attempted to rescue the king. Throughout London the consternation was great at the usurpation by the remnant of the Commons of all the rights of the Three Estates, and still more, at the trial of the king. The army, however, lay in and about London, and, with Cromwell at its head, it would, the people felt, easily crush out any attempt at a rising in the city. Within a few hours of his arrival in London, Harry saw that there was no hope from any effort in this direction, and that the only possible chance of saving the king was by his arranging for his escape. His majesty, on his arrival from Windsor, had been lodged in St. James' Palace, and as this was completely surrounded by the Roundhead troops, there was no chance of effecting an invasion thence. The only possible plan appeared to be a sudden attack upon his guards on his way to execution.

Harry gathered round him a party of thirty Cavaliers, all men ready like himself to sacrifice their lives for the king. Their plan was to gather near Whitehall, where the execution was to take place, to burst through the soldiers lining the way, to cut down the guards, and carry the king to a boat in readiness behind Whitehall, This was to convey him across to Lambeth, where fleet horses were to be stationed, which would take him down to the Essex coast.

The plan was a desperate one, but it might possibly have succeeded, could the Cavaliers have gained the position which they wished. The whole of the army was, however, placed in the streets and passages leading to Whitehall, and between that place and the city the cavalry were drawn up, preventing any from coming in or going out. When they found that this was the case, the Cavaliers in despair mounted their horses, and rode into the country, with their hearts filled with grief and rage.

On the 30th, an hour after the king's execution, proclamation was made that whoever should proclaim a new king would be deemed a traitor, and a week later, the Commons, now reduced to a hundred members, formally abolished the House of Peers. A little later Lord Capel, Lord Holland, and the Duke of Hamilton were