perilous position there. There was, as we have seen, a numerous body in London in favour of the king, who had no reliance on the militia. To conciliate public opinion, the parliament ordered the release of the aldermen imprisoned at the desire of the army, and revoked the impeachment against the six lords and eleven commons. Hollis and his associates resumed their seats and their old measures, voted for a renewed negotiation with the king on condition that he should restore presbyterianism, and give the command of the army to parliament for ten years. Luckily for the independents, the lords rejected these propositions, and voted a treaty without any conditions. At the same time the common council, showing a decided leaning towards the king, offered to protect him from danger and insult if he would come to the capital. The danger to the independent interest was only repelled by the obstinacy of their old enemy Hollis, who would consent to nothing which did not establish presbyterianism.
Whilst these discussions agitated the city, Fairfax marched on Goring, who quitted Blackheath, crossed the Thames into Essex with five thousand horse, where he was joined by lord Capel, with royalists from Hertfordshire, and Sir Charles Lucas, with a body of horse from Chelmsford. They concentrated their united force at Colchester, where they determined to hold out till the advance of the Scots, and thus detain the commander-in-chief in the south. The Scots were now in reality on the march. The duke of Hamilton had not been able to muster more than a fourth of his promised forty thousand. Though he proclaimed everywhere that Charles had promised to take the covenant and uphold the presbyterian religion, Argyll and the old covenanting body wholly distrusted these assurances; the assembly of the kirk demanded proofs of the king's engagement; the ministers from the pulpits denounced the curse of Meroz on all who engaged in this unholy war, and the women cursed the duke as he passed, and pelted him with stones from their windows.
The English royalists under Langdale, about four thousand brave cavaliers, had surprised Berwick and Carlisle, and awaited with impatience Hamilton's arrival. Lambert, the parliamentary general, advanced and besieged Carlisle, and Hamilton was urged to advance and relieve it. He sent forward a detachment, and on the 8th of July arrived himself, being already supported by three thousand veterans from the Scottish army in Ireland, and, now uniting with Sir Marmaduke Langdale, he presented a formidable force. Lambert retired at his approach, and had Hamilton been a man of any military talent, he might have struck an effective blow. But from the moment that he crossed the border, he appeared to have lost all energy. His army was paralysed by internal dissensions. The Scotch presbyterian soldiers were scandalised at having to fight side by side with Langdale's prelatists and papists, whom they had been accustomed to see ranged against them as the enemies of the covenant. In forty days he had advanced only eighty miles, and when he reached the left bank of the Ribble, near Preston, Cromwell had reduced Pembroke, marched rapidly northward through Gloucester, Warwick, Leicester, to Nottingham, where he left his prisoners safe with colonel Hutchinson, governor of the castle, and soon joined Lambert at Otley Park, and forced back Langdale from Clitheroe on the main body at Preston. Hamilton at the last moment was all unprepared. Monroe with his veterans, lay still at Kirby Lonsdale. Yet Hamilton, with his fourteen thousand, should have been a match for Cromwell, Lambert, and Lilburne's nine thousand. But Cromwell attacked them with such vigour, that after a hard battle of six hours, he routed the whole force. The cavaliers fought like lions, and only retreated from hedge to hedge before the foe, calling repeatedly on the Scots for reinforcements and ammunition, but not being able to get either, retreated into the town. There they discovered that their allies were engaged in a fierce contest with the enemy for possession of the bridge. Cromwell won the bridge, and the Scots fled in the night towards Wigan. Hamilton retreated with some of the English towards Warrington. Lieutenant-general Baillie, with a great party of the Scotch army, surrendered on quarter in that town. Monroe, who was lying at Kirby, ignorant of the battle or the coming up of the fugitives, retreated to Scotland—the only body of Scots who regained their country. Hamilton, on the 20th of August, three days after the battle, was overtaken by Lambert and lord Grey of Groby, and surrendered at Uttoxeter. Langdale's cavaliers dispersed in Derbyshire, and he himself, in woman's apparel, was discovered at Widnerpool, in Nottinghamshire; but by the contrivance of lady Saville, escaped dressed as a clergyman, to London, where he remained with Dr. Barwick in the character of an Irish minister driven from his parish by the papists. So ended duke Hamilton's boasted invasion. This blow totally annihilated his party in Scotland; Argyll and the covenanters rose into the ascendant. Argyll soon after this seized a ship containing ten thousand stand of arms, which had been sent from Denmark for Hamilton's expedition. He invited Cromwell to Edinburgh, where he was received with great distinction, and was honoured by the thanks of the Scottish ministers as the preserver of Scotland under God. The members of the function of Hamilton were declared enemies to religion and the kingdom, and incapable of serving in parliament or the assembly of the kirk. On the 16th of August Cromwell left Edinburgh, the duke of Argyll and the nobles of that party accompanying him some miles on his way, and taking leave of him with many demonstrations of respect.
At the same time that the Scots began their march, a rising which had been made in concert with Hamilton, took place in London. The earl of Holland, who had become contemptible to all parties, by twice going over to the parliament, and twice falling back to the king, entered London with five hundred horse, and called on the citizens to join him for king Charles. The inhabitants had been too recently punished for their apprentice rising to make a second experiment. Holland fell back, therefore, on Kingston-on-Thames, where he was attacked and defeated by Sir Michael Levesey, and lord Francis Villiers, brother to the young duke of Buckingham, was slain. Holland had induced the brother of Buckingham himself to follow him; the latter escaped to the continent, and returned at the restoration, like most of his party, no better for his experience. Holland and colonel Dalbier retreated to St. Neots, where a party of soldiers sent by Fairfax from Colchester met them, and took Holland
