The Works of Thomas Carlyle/Volume 6/Letter 66
“FOR THE HONOURABLE THE COMMITTEE AT YORK: THESE”
Gentlemen, I have intelligence even now come to my hands, That Duke Hamilton with a wearied Body of Horse is drawing towards Pontefract; where probably he may lodge himself, and rest his Horse;—as not daring to continue in those Countries whence we have driven him, the Country-people rising in such numbers, and stopping his passage at every bridge.
Major-General Lambert, with a very considerable force, pursues him at the heels. I desire you that you would get together what force you can, to put a stop to any farther designs they may have; and so be ready to join with Major-General Lambert, if there shall be need. I am marching Northward with the greatest part of the Army; where I shall be glad to hear from you. I rest, your very affectionate friend and servant,
I could wish you would draw-out whatever force you have; either to be in his rear or to impede his march. For I am persuaded, if he, or the greatest part of those that are with him be taken, it would make an end of the Business of Scotland.[1]
This Letter, carelessly printed in the old Newspaper, is without address; but we learn that it ‘came to my hands this present afternoon,‘ ‘at York,‘ 26th August 1648;—whither also truer rumours, truer news, as to Hamilton and his affairs, are on the road.
On Friday 25th, at Uttoxeter in Staffordshire, the poor Duke of Hamilton, begirt with enemies, distracted with mutinies and internal discords, surrenders and ceases; ‘very ill, and unable to march.‘ ‘My Lord Duke and Calendar,‘ says Dalgetty, ‘fell out and were at very high words at supper, where I was,‘ the night before; each blaming the other for the misfortune and miscarriage of our affairs: a sad employment! Dalgetty himself went prisoner to Hull; lay long with Colonel Robert Overton, an acquaintance of ours there. ‘As we rode from Uttoxeter, we made a stand at the Duke’s window; and he looking out with some kind words, we took our eternal farewell of him,‘—never saw him more. He died on the scaffold for this business; being Earl of Cambridge, and an English Peer as well as Scotch—the unhappiest of men; one of those singularly able men’ who, with all their ability,‘ have never succeeded in any enterprise whatever!—
Colchester Siege, one of the most desperate defences, being now plainly without object, terminates on Monday next.[2] Surrender, ‘on quarter’ for the inferior parties, ‘at discretion’ for the superior. Two of the latter, Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle, gallant Officers both, are sentenced and shot on the place. ‘By Ireton’s instigation,’ say some: yes, or without any special instigation; merely by the nature of the case! They who, contrary to Law and Treaty, have again involved this Nation in blood, do they deserve nothing?—Two more, Goring and Lord Capel, stood trial at Westminster; of whom Lord Capel lost his head. He was ‘the first man that rose to complain of Grievances’ in November 1640; being then Mr. Capel, and Member for Hertfordshire.
The Prince with his Fleet in the Downs, too, so soon as these Lancashire tidings reached him, made off for Holland; ‘entered the Hague in thirty coaches,’ and gave-up his military pursuits. The Second Civil War, its back once broken here at Preston, rapidly dies everywhere; is already as good as dead.
In Scotland itself there is no farther resistance. The oppressed Kirk Party rise rather, and almost thank the conquerors. ‘Sir George Monro,’ says Turner, ‘following constantly a whole day’s march to the rear of us,’ finding himself, by this unhappy Battle, cut asunder from my Lord Duke, and brought into contact with Cromwell instead,—‘marched straight back to Scotland and joined with Earl Lanark’s forces,’ my Lord Duke’s brother. ‘Straight back,’ as we shall find, is not the word for this march.
‘But so soon as the news of our Defeat came to Scotland’, continues Turner, ‘Argyle and the Kirk Party rose in arms; every mother’s son; and this was called the “Whiggamore Raid”’: 1648,—first appearance of the Whig Party on the page of History, I think! ‘David Lesley was at their head, and old Leven,’ the Fieldmarshal of 1639, ‘in the Castle of Edinburgh; who cannonaded the Royal’ Hamilton ‘troops whenever they came in view of him!’[3]
Cromwell proceeds northward, goes at last to Edinburgh itself, to compose this strange state of matters.
- ↑ Newspaper, Packets of Letters from Scotland and the North, no. 24 (London, printed by Robert Ibbitson in Smithfield, 29th August 1648).———See, in Appendix, No. 12, Letter of same date to Derby-House Committee, requesting supplies (Note of 1857).
- ↑ 28th August, Rushworth, vii. 1242.
- ↑ Turner, ubi supra; Guthry’s Memoirs (Glasgow, 1748), p. 285.