The Works of Thomas Carlyle/Volume 6/Letter 10
This Letter is the first of Cromwell’s ever published in the Newspapers. ‘That valiant soldier Colonel Cromwell’ has written on this occasion to an official Person of name not now discoverable:
“TO : THESE”
Sir,—God hath given us, this evening, a glorious victory over our enemies. They were, as we are informed, one-and-twenty colours of horse-troops, and three or four of dragoons.
It was late in the evening when we drew out; they came and faced us within two miles of the town. So soon as we had the alarm, we drew out our forces, consisting of about twelve troops,—whereof some of them so poor and broken, that you shall seldom see worse: with this handful it pleased God to cast the scale. For after we had stood a little, above musket-shot the one body from the other; and the dragooners had fired on both sides, for the space of half an hour or more; they not advancing towards us, we agreed to charge them. And, advancing the body after many shots on both sides, we came on with our troops a pretty round trot; they standing firm to receive us: and our men charging fiercely upon them, by God’s providence they were immediately routed, and ran all away, and we had the execution of them two or three miles.
I believe some of our soldiers did kill two or three men apiece in the pursuit; but what the number of dead is we are not certain. We took forty-five Prisoners, besides divers of their horse and arms, and rescued many Prisoners whom they had lately taken of ours; and we took four or five of their colours. “I rest” * * * “OLIVER CROMWELL.”[1]
On inquiry at Grantham, there is no vestige of tradition as to the scene of this skirmish; which must have been some two miles out on the Newark road. Thomas May, a veracious intelligent man, but vague as to dates, mentions two notable skirmishes of Cromwell’s ‘near to Grantham,’ in the course of this business; one especially in which ‘he defeated a strong party of the Newarkers, where the odds of number on their side was so great that it seemed almost a miraculous victory’: that probably is the one now in question. Colonel Cromwell, we farther find, was very ‘vigilant of all sallies that were made, and took many men and colours at several times’;[2] and did what was in Colonel Cromwell;—but could not take Newark at present. One element or other of the combination always fails. Newark, again and again besieged, did not surrender until the end of the War. At present, it is terribly wet weather, for one thing; ‘thirteen days of continual rain.’
The King, as we observed, is in Oxford: Treaty, of very slow gestation, came to birth in March last, and was carried on there by Whitlocke and others till the beginning of April; but ended in absolute nothing.[3] The King still continues in Oxford,—his head-quarters for three years to come. The Lord General Essex did at one time think of Oxford, but preferred to take Reading first; is lying now scattered about Thame, and Brickhill in Buckinghamshire, much drenched with the unseasonable rains, in a very dormant, discontented condition.[4] Colonel Hampden is with him. There is talk of making Colonel Hampden Lord General. The immediate hopes of the world, however, are turned on ‘that valiant soldier and patriot of his country’ Sir William Waller, who has marched to discomfit the Malignants of the West.
On the 4th of this May, Cheapside Cross, Charing Cross, and other Monuments of Papist Idolatry were torn down by authority, ‘troops of soldiers sounding their trumpets, and all the people shouting’; the Book of Sports was also burnt on the ruins of the same.[5] In which days, too, all the people are working at the Fortification of London.
- ↑ Perfect Diurnal of the Passages in Parliament, 22d-29th May 1643; completed from Vicars, p. 332, whose copy, however, is not, except as to sense and facts, to be relied on.
- ↑ History of Long Parliament, p. 208.
- ↑ Whitlocke, 1st edition, pp 63-5; Husbands, ii. 48-119
- ↑ Rushworth, v. 290; May, p. 192.
- ↑ Lithgow (in Somers Tracts, iv. 536); Vicars (date incorrect), p. 327.