The Works of Thomas Carlyle/Volume 6/Letter 62
TO THE HONOURABLE WILLIAM LENTHALL, ESQUIRE, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS: THESE
Sir,—The Town and Castle of Pembroke were surrendered to me this day, being the Eleventh of July; upon the Propositions which I send you here enclosed.[1] What Arms, Ammunition, Victual, Ordnance or other Necessaries of War are in “the” Town I have not to certify you,—the Commissioners I sent-in to receive the same not being yet returned, nor like suddenly to be; and I was unwilling to defer the giving you an account of this mercy for a day.
The Persons Excepted are such as have formerly served you in a very good Cause; but, being now apostatised, I did rather make election of them than of those who had always been for the King;—judging their iniquity double; because they have sinned against so much light, and against so many evidences of Divine Providence going along with and prospering a just Cause, in the management of which they themselves had a share. I rest, your humble servant,
Drunken Colonel Poyer, Major-General Laughern and certain others, ‘persons excepted,‘ have had to surrender at mercy; a great many more on terms: Pembroke happily is down; and the Welsh War is ended.[3] Cromwell hurries northward: by Gloucester, Warwick; gets ‘3,000 pairs of shoes’ at Leicester; leaves his prisoners at Nottingham (with Mrs. Hutchinson and her Colonel, in the Castle there); joins Lambert among the hills of Yorkshire,[4] where his presence is much needed now.
July 27th. In these tumultuous months the Fleet too, as we heard at Pembroke once[5], has partially revolted; ‘set Colonel Admiral Rainsborough ashore,‘ in the end of May last. The Earl of Warwick, hastily sent thither, has brought part of it to order again; other part of it has fled to Holland, to the Young Prince of Wales. The Young Prince goes hopefully on board, steers for the coast of England; emits his summons and manifesto from Yarmouth Roads, on the 27th of this month. Getting nothing at Yarmouth, he appears next week in the Downs; orders London to join him, or at least to lend him 20,000l.[6]
It all depends on Hamilton and Cromwell now. His Majesty from Carisbrook Castle, the revolted Mariners, the London Presbyterians, the Besieged in Colchester, and all men, are waiting anxiously what they Two now will make of it when they meet.
- ↑ Given in Rushworth, vii. 1190.
- ↑ Copy in Tanner MSS. lxii. 159: printed correctly in Grey on the Third Volume of Neal’s Puritans (Appendix, p. 129), from another source.
- ↑ Order, ‘12th July 1648’ (the day after Pembroke), for demolishing the Castle of Haverfordwest: in Appendix, No. 11.
- ↑ At Barnard Castle, on the 27th July, his horse’ joined (Rushworth, vii. 1211); he himself not till a fortnight after, at Wetherby farther south.
- ↑ Antea, p. 322.
- ↑ Rushworth, vii.; 29th May, p. 1131; 8th June, 11th June, pp. 1145, 1151: 27th July, pp. 1207, 1215, etc.