tenant-Colonel to his own regiment of Dragoons, on the 16th of May 1644[sidenote 1]. This post he sustained with signal bravery at the battle of Marston-moor[sidenote 2], in the beginning of July, which being observed by Cromwell and Fairfax, he was offered a good post also in the army, upon the new modelling thereof[footnote 1], in April 1645: but the boilings of his conscience swelling now as high against the covenanted Presbytery as they had formerly done against the Prerogative and Episcopacy, he resolved to quit the service, and accordingly, on the last day of that month, he delivered up his troop, with the regiment, to Colonel John Okely near Abingdon[sidenote 3]. He had no sooner laid down his military weapons, than he took that state weapon his pen up, against the new-rising dominion: and attacked his old associate Mr Prynne, in a printed epistle to him on that subject, dated June the 7th, 1645[footnote 2]; and being brought before a committee of the House ofCommons
Sidenotes
Footnotes
- ↑ [O] Proferred a good post when the army was new modelled, but resolved to quit the service.] He assures us this offer was made him by no mean man, even while this new model was framing, but that visibly there was such bitter designs against the poor people of God, who were strongly endeavoured to be destroyed by them, who with all their might they had endeavoured to preserve; and, ‘also, continues he, the laws and justice of the kingdom, to my understanding, in a very sad condition, I plainly told Lieutenant Cromwell, I would dig for turneps and carrots before I would fight to set up a power to make myself a slave, which expression he relished not well. Whereupon I told him, Sir, I will, if I were free to fight again, never serve a jealous master while I live. For the Parliament, by their late vote, hath declared a jealousie in all men that will not take the Covenant, which I can never do; and therefore, seeing I have served them faithfully, and they are grown jealous of me without cause, after so much assured experience of my faithfulnesse, I will never, in the mind I am now in, serve them as a soldier while I breath, let them get whom they please, and doe what they please[citation 2].’ Lord Clarendon gives the following account of this matter: That ‘from the the time of Lilburne’s returning to the army, after his imprisonment at Oxford, he was entertained by Cromwell with great familiarity, and in his contests with the Parliament, was of much use to him, and privacy with him. But he began then to find him so restless and unruly a spirit, and to make those advances in religion against the Presbyterians, before he thought it seasonable, that he dispensed with his presence in the army, where he was an officer of note, and made him reside in London, where he wished that temper should be improved; and when the Parliament was so much offended with his seditious humour, and the pamphlets he published every day in religion, with reflections upon their proceedings, that they resolved to prosecute him with great rigour; towards which the Assembly of Divines[citation 3], which he had likewise provoked, contributed their desire and demand. Cromwell wrote a very passionate letter to the Parliament, that they should so much discourage their army that was fighting for them, as to censure an officer of it for his opinion in point of conscience, for the liberty whereof, and to free themselves from the shackles in which the Bishops had enslaved them, that army had been principally raised; upon which all farther prosecution of Lilburne was declined at that time, tho’ he declined not their further provocation, and continued to make the proceedings of the Parliament as odious as he could[citation 4].’ The nature of this connexion between Cromwell and our author, which, agreeably to his plan, the noble historian here touches only in generals, will, in the sequel of this memoir, be seen fully and distinctly in the several particular incidents which were the effects thereof. To this purpose we must observe at present, that his Lordship is not to be understood (tho’ the words seem to imply as much) to signify our author’s continuance in the army long after the new model of it made by Fairfax and Cromwell, since the contrary is not only asserted by Lilburne, as appears in the text and remark thereto; but it is abundantly manifest in every step of his life after the time assigned there for his quitting the service. Moreover Lilburne expressly declares, in 1649, that after he threw up his commission, [in April 1645] he never could fight as a soldier, although Cromwell by himself, face to face, and by his agents (he was confident of it) had from time to time, and as earnestly sollicited him (as was possible for a man to be sollicited) to take a command in Fairfax’s army[citation 5]. And we shall find hereafter, that the arch-rebel had much more difficulty in managing the restless and unruly spirit of this underling, than his Lordship’s representation of it is apt to lead one into the belief of.
- ↑ [P] A printed epistle to Mr Prynne in June 1645.] Our author gives the following account of this piece: ‘No sooner was I by the ears with Manchester [in November this year[citation 6]], but Mr Prynne wrote his desperate invective books against us all that would not be conformable to the Covenant (that cheat), and the Scots Presbytery (that every thing and nothing); and would have had us all destroyed or banished the land of our nativity: so, in conscience to God, and safety to myself and brethren, I was inwardly compelled to deal with him that thus sought to destroy the generation of the Righteous; and accordingly I wrote him a sharp epistle now in print,
to pay his officers and soldiers at Newark siege, yet the Major could never hear he had paid one penny to any officer there, and, as for his own part, he could not get a penny from him. So likewise, altho’ the country sent in great store of provisions for his regiment gratis, yet he and his under-sutlers made the Major and other officers and soldiers to pay ready money for a great part of it, to their extraordinary discontent, provoking them thereby to mutiny. That Sir John Maldrum told him, the Colonel had raised such a fire of contention among the chief officers at Newark siege, that he durst not call a council of war to consult how to manage their business, being there continually in contest with my Lord Willoughby, Colonel Rossiter, Sir Miles Hubbard, Sir John Paragraffe, and divers of the Lincoln committee: so that the commander in chief knew not well what to do, by reason of these distractions, when Prince Rupert came upon them. That he put Boston into great danger of being lost to the enemy, by ordering all the powder out of the magazine, and notwithstanding the loss of his own regiment’s arms at Newark, yet he refused to send for a supply to the governour of Lynn, ’till that supply was ordered by another; and when it did come, he sent the men immediately to recover Crowland, which had been lost by his means. The Earl of Manchester having heard the Major’s complaint, sent him post to London, to the committee of both kingdoms, about his marching to recover Lincoln, and thence to march to York to join the Scots. After his return, he renewed his complaints at Lincoln, desiring a council of war might be called thereupon. A trial by a court martial was also sollicited by some of the committee of Lincoln, who drew up a very heinous charge against Colonel King, as did also the Mayor and Aldermen of Boston; these last pressing Cromwell to use all his interest in the Earl, that they might be admitted to make their articles good in a council of war. Here a less spirited and more artful prosecutor would have rested the matter, especially as he had found the sweets of it, in being raised to the post of Lieutenant-Colonel of Dragoons, and moreover, seen the Colonel thereupon discharged the service, and put out of all his commands and offices, which were very many and profitable; being Colonel of horse, Colonel of dragoons, and Colonel of foot, Governor of Boston and the parts of Holland, and Governor of the city and county of Lincoln, with a power to levy what money he judged necessary for the support of the same. But the Lieutenant-Colonel not being able to procure the trial by a court-martial, prevailed with some of the Lincoln committee to exhibit to the House of Commons, in August 1644, a charge of high crimes and misdemeanors, consisting of 22 articles, against the Colonel, undertaking to support the greater part of them by his own testimony[citation 1]. The precipitate rashness and wrong headed zeal of this forward step will appear presently.
Citations
- ↑ (36) Ibid. from p. 5 to p. 25. second edit. in 1647, 4to.
- ↑ (37) Resolved Man’s Resolution, p. 35, 36.
- ↑ * In one place he calls them, by way of contempt, an assembly of dry-vines, and charges them with perjury in pressing the Covenant, where they engage to maintain the old established laws of England, and then notoriously encouraging the violation of those laws. Oppressed Man’s Oppression, p. 22.
- ↑ (38) History of the Rebellion, Vol. III. p. 392. first edit. in fol.
- ↑ (39) Legal and Fundamental Liberties, p. 23.
- ↑ (40) See below in remark [X].
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