The Works of Thomas Carlyle/Volume 6/Letter 21
MARSTON MOOR
In the last days of June 1644, Prince Rupert, with an army of some 20,000 fierce men, came pouring over the hills from Lancashire, where he had left harsh traces of himself, to relieve the Marquis of Newcastle, who was now with a force of 6,000 besieged in York, by the united forces of the Scots under Leven, the Yorkshiremen under Lord Fairfax, and the Associated Counties under Manchester and Cromwell. On hearing of his approach, the Parliament Generals raised the Siege; drew out on the Moor of Long Marston, some four miles off, to oppose his coming. He avoided them by crossing the river Ouse; relieved York, Monday 1st July; and might have returned successful; but insisted on Newcastle’s joining him, and going out to fight the Roundheads. The Battle of Marston Moor, fought on the morrow evening, Tuesday 2d July 1644, from 7 to 10 o’clock, was the result,—entirely disastrous for him.
Of this Battle, the bloodiest of the whole War, I must leave the reader to gather details in the sources indicated below;[1] or to imagine it in general as the most enormous hurlyburly, of fire and smoke, and steel-flashings and death-tumult, ever seen in those regions: the end of which, about ten at night, was ‘Four-thousand one-hundred-and-fifty bodies’ to be buried, and total ruin to the King’s affairs in those Northern parts.
The Armies were not completely drawn-up till after five in the evening; there was a ditch between them; they stood facing one another, motionless except the exchange of a few cannon-shots, for an hour and half. Newcastle thought there would be no fighting till the morrow, and had retired to his carriage for the night. There is some shadow of surmise that the stray cannon-shot which, as the following Letter indicates, proved fatal to Oliver’s Nephew, did also, rousing Oliver’s humour to the charging point, bring on the general Battle. ‘The Prince of Plunderers,’ invincible hitherto, here first tasted the steel of Oliver’s Ironsides, and did not in the least like it. ‘The Scots delivered their fire with such constancy and swiftness, it was as if the whole air had become an element of fire,‘―in the ancient summer gloaming there.
“TO MY LOVING BROTHER, COLONEL VALENTINE WALTON: THESE”
Dear Sir,―It’s our duty to sympathise in all mercies; and to praise the Lord together in chastisements or trials, that so we may sorrow together.
Truly England and the Church of God hath had a great favour from the Lord, in this great Victory given unto us, such as the like never was since this War began. It had all the evidences of an absolute Victory obtained by the Lord’s blessing upon the Godly Party principally. We never charged but we routed the enemy. The Left Wing, which I commanded, being our own horse, saving a few Scots in our rear, beat all the Prince’s horse. God made them as stubble to our swords. We charged their regiments of foot with our horse, and routed all we charged. The particulars I cannot relate now; but I believe, of Twenty-thousand the Prince hath not Four-thousand left. Give glory, all the glory, to God.—
Sir, God hath taken away your eldest Son by a cannon-shot. It brake his leg. We were necessitated to have it cut off, whereof he died.
Sir, you know my own trials this way:[2] but the Lord supported me with this, That the Lord took him into the happiness we all pant for and live for. There is your precious child full of glory, never to know sin or sorrow any more. He was a gallant young man, exceedingly gracious. God give you His comfort. Before his death he was so full of comfort that to Frank Russel and myself he could not express it, ‘It was so great above his pain.’ This he said to us. Indeed it was admirable. A little after, he said, One thing lay upon his spirit. I asked him, What that was? He told me it was, That God had not suffered him to be any more the executioner of His enemies. At his fall, his horse being killed with the bullet, and as I am informed three horses more, I am told he bid them, Open to the right and left, that he might see the rogues run. Truly he was exceedingly beloved in the Army, of all that knew him. But few knew him; for he was a precious young man, fit for God. You have cause to bless the Lord. He is a glorious Saint in Heaven; wherein you ought exceedingly to rejoice. Let this drink-up your sorrow; seeing these are not feigned words to comfort you, but the thing is so real and undoubted a truth. You may do all things by the strength of Christ. Seek that, and you shall easily bear your trial. Let this public mercy to the Church of God make you to forget your private sorrow. The Lord be your strength: so prays your truly faithful and loving brother, OLIVER CROMWELL.
My love to your Daughter, and my Cousin Perceval, Sister Desborow and all friends with you.[3]
Colonel Valentine Walton, already a conspicuous man, and more so afterwards, is of Great-Staughton, Huntingdonshire, a neighbour of the Earl of Manchester’s; Member for his County, and a Colonel since the beginning of the War. There had long been an intimacy between the Cromwell Family and his. His Wife, the Mother of this slain youth, is Margaret Cromwell, Oliver’s younger Sister, next to him in the family series. ‘Frank Russel’ is of Chippenham, Cambridgeshire, eldest son of the Baronet there; already a Colonel; soon afterwards Governor of Ely in Oliver’s stead.[4] It was the daughter of this Frank that Henry Cromwell, some ten years hence, wedded.
Colonel Walton, if he have at present some military charge of the Association, seems to attend mainly on Parliament; and this Letter, I think, finds him in Town. The poor wounded youth would have to lie on the field at Marston while the Battle was fought; the whole Army had to bivouac there, next to no food, hardly even water to be had. That of ‘Seeing the rogues run,’ occurs more than once at subsequent dates in these Wars:[5] who first said it, or whether anybody ever said it, must remain uncertain.
York was now captured in a few days: Prince Rupert had fled across into Lancashire, and so ‘south to Shropshire, to recruit again’; Marquis Newcastle with ‘about eighty gentlemen,’ disgusted at the turn of affairs, had withdrawn beyond seas. The Scots moved northward to attend the Siege of Newcastle,—ended it by storm in October next. On the 24th of which same month, 24th October 1644, the Parliament promulgated its Rhadamanthine Ordinance, To ‘hang any Irish Papist taken in arms in this country’;[6] a very severe Ordinance, but not uncalled for by the nature of the ‘marauding apparatus’ in question there.
- ↑ King’s Pamphlets, small 4to, no. 164 (various accounts by eye-witnesses); no. 168, one by Simeon Ash, the Earl of Manchester’s Chaplain; no. 167, etc.: Rushworth, v. 632: Carte’s Ormond Papers (London, 1739), i. 56: Fairfax’s Memorials (Somers Tracts, v. 389). Modern accounts are numerous, but of no value.
- ↑ I conclude, the poor Boy Oliver has already fallen in these Wars,—none of us knows where, though his Father well knew!— —Note to Third Edition: In the Squire Papers (Frasers Magazine, December 1847) is this passage: ‘Meeting Cromwell again after some absence, just on the edge of Marston Battle, Squire says, “I thought he looked sad and wearied, for he had had a sad loss; young Oliver got killed to death not long before, I heard: it was near Knaresborough, and 30 more got killed.”’— —Note of 1857: see antea, p. 48 n.
- ↑ Seward’s Anecdotes (London, 1798), i. 362; reproduced in Ellis’s Original Letters (First Series), iii. 299. ‘Original once in the possession of Mr. Langton of Welbeck Street,’ says Ellis;—‘in the Bodleian Library,’ says Seward.
- ↑ See Noble, ii. 407-8,—with vigilance against his blunders.
- ↑ Ludlow.
- ↑ Rushworth, v. 783.