7639 May 15. at Aberdeen. THE CONFLICT IN THE NORTH. 21 victors to follow up their advantage, and the Gordons pushed on to occupy Aberdeen, where they lived at free quarters on the few partisans of the Covenant in the place. Their triumph did not last long. On the 24th they were driven The Gordons out by the Earl Marischal. On the 25th Montrose was back again with a strong force to occupy the town. Acts of pillage were committed by the occupies the soldiery; but Montrose refused to give up to a town. general plunder even that hostile city which, as the Presbyterians were never tired of asserting, had earned the fate of Meroz in refusing to come to the help of the Lord against the mighty. May 25. Montrose May 29. It was long before the news even of the Trot of Turriff reached Hamilton's fleet. It was unknown on the 29th, when Aboyne arrived with a number of Scottish lords sent Aboyne with by the King to get what help they could. Hamilton Hamilton. had now only one regiment left, and, even if he wished to help Aboyne; it was little indeed that he could do. If the King, he wrote, would send 5,000 men, and money to pay an equal number of Scots, something might be done. He himself, as the King well knew, had neither the men nor the money. Two days later Hamilton had heard of the rising in the North. He sent off Aboyne without delay, and he asked the King to despatch the force which he had mentioned in his last letter. Of this force he wished to take the command in person. With ten or twelve thousand pounds he could do much.1 May 31. Hamilton asks for an army. Charles would have been sorely puzzled to spare such a sum from his meagre resources. Yet, difficult as his position was, he was not despondent. His last proclamation May 25. The Scottish had received an answer which can hardly have been to his mind. The Scots declared themselves quite ready to keep the prescribed distance of ten miles from the Borders, if he would on his part withdraw his army and his fleet.2 Leslie in the meanwhile had taken up his post at answer to the last proclamation. 1 Hamilton to the King, May 29, 31, Ham. Papers, 89, 90, 2 The Scottish Nobility to Holland, May 25, Peterkin's Records, 222. Dunglas, between Berwick and Dunbar, ready for peace or negotiation. May 28. Charles at Berwick. For negotiation as between equal and equal, Charles was not yet prepared. As he rode into Berwick on the 28th he could witness the landing of Hamilton's men,1 and he felt himself safer than before. On the 30th he left Berwick for the Birks, a piece of ground on May 30. Tweedside, about three miles above the town, and The King in took up his quarters under canvas in the midst of his soldiers. Once at the head of his men, he fretted at the tame submission which so many of his counsellors recom camp. mended. All that day he was on horseback, riding about to view the quarters of the men. Raw and untrained as they were, these hasty levies warmed with the prospect of a combat. "One thing," wrote an onlooker, "I must not conceal, which I care not if all Europe knew, that no nation in the world can show greater courage and bravery of spirit than our soldiers. do, even the meanest of them, in hope of fight, which they extremely desire; upon the first intimation of the Scots' approach, and their dislodging and new camp upon the face of the enemy, 1 Borough to Windebank, May 28, S. P. Dom. ccccxxii. 63. 1639 THE MARCH TO DUNSE. 23 they cast up their caps with caprioles, shouts, and signs of joy, and marched by force in the morning to their new station with fury." 1 At the head of such men Charles might well believe that in time everything would still be possible. In the immediate present very little indeed was possible. He could not send his enthusiastic but undisciplined levies to storm Leslie's camp at Dunglas. He would therefore make one more effort to win over the Scottish peasants in his vicinity by those tempting offers of a diminution of rent which had been embodied in the proclamation issued in April,2 and which, as he believed, needed only to be heard to be accepted with joy. As an Edinburgh preacher expressed it, he was eager to address the humble Scottish Covenanter in the words of the Satanic temptation: "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." 3 May 31. Arundel sent to Dunse. June 1. Charles determined that the first experiment should be made at Dunse. No lesser personages than Arundel and Holland, the commander of the whole army and the General of the Horse, were to be the bearers of the King's gracious declaration to the peasant, and of his fierce denunciation of the landlord. When Arundel rode into Dunse in the early morning, not a man was to be seen. The women came out into the street, threw themselves on their knees, as their grandmothers had doubtless done to the leaders of many a Border foray, cursing Leslie and beseeching the English general 'for God's sake not to burn. their houses, kill their children, nor bring in popery, as Leslie had told them the King meant to do.' Arundel spoke them fairly, assuring them of his protection, and ordering that the proclamation should be read in their hearing. When the ceremony was over, a few men stole out of their hiding-places, and a market was soon established. Arundel did his best to create a good impression in the country by directing his men to pay for everything that they took, and the Scotchmen took good I Norgate to Windebank, May 28, S. P. Dom. ccccxxii. 62. 2 See page 9. News-Letter, May 24, ibid. ccccxxi. 177. care to ask exorbitant prices for the stock of milk and oaten cakes which was all that they possessed. Of such services Charles's army was not incapable. But it had no confidence in its leaders, no habitual restraint under the June 2. The King prepares to take the aggressive. rules of military life. random in the camp. The men fired off their guns at Officers complained of bullets Want of discipline. perforating the canvas of their tents. Even the King's pavilion was pierced by a shot. For all this, Charles was strangely confident. He refused, indeed, Hamilton's' request for men for a great expedition to the North, but he refused it on the ground that he was himself on the point of assuming the aggressive. Not a few of the Lords beyond the Border had already been gained over to his side, and it would be a shame to be idle. "Wherefore now," he ended, "I set you loose to do what mischief you can do upon the rebels for my service with those men you have, for you cannot have one man from hence." I The numbers of Charles's army had lately been considerably increased. With the new reinforcements and with regiments Numbers of returned from the Firth, he could now reckon upon the army. 18,000 foot and 3,000 horse.2 But the very improvement in one respect brought with it a fresh danger in another. The larger the army grew, the more difficult it was Financial to maintain it. Before the end of May the Lord difficulty. Treasurer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had lost all hope. The revenue, they declared, was completely exhausted. Cottington averred that even before the King left London he had in vain 'searched every corner from whence any probability of money could be procured.' The only 1 Borough to Windebank, June 3, 7; Windebank to Windebank, June 3; Norgate to Read, June 3, S. P. Dom. ccccxxiii. 12, 13, 16. The King to Hamilton, June 2, Burnet, 138. 2 The account given by Rushworth (iii. 926) is, after deducting the Carlisle garrison of 1,300 men, in exact figures 18,314 foot and 3,260 horse. It is shown by comparison with the account of the Treasurer of the Army (see note at p. 385 of Vol. VIII.) to belong to the first days of June. Some of the forces mentioned are not borne on the Treasurer's accounts, and were probably paid from special funds in Charles's hands. 1639 FINANCIAL DISTRESS. 25 chance of finding pay for the army lay in that general contribution which had been demanded in April. The Council had long ceased to be sanguine of a favourable reply. "Hitherto," wrote Windebank, we have very cold answers, which, though they be not direct refusals, are almost as ill; for they bring us no relief nor no hope of it. Some petty sums, and those very few, have been offered. So that my lords begin to apprehend this will be of little consideration, and to use compulsory means in these distempered times my lords are very tender, and apprehend it may be of dangerous consequence." 1 It was hard to say what answer could be made to this. By leaving just claims unpaid, and by anticipating the revenue to the extent of about 150,000l., the army had hitherto been kept on foot, though its expenditure after the late reinforcements might be approximately reckoned at the rate of 750,000l. a year. As to the general contribution of which Windebank spoke so despondingly, it was found at the end of July, when money ceased to come in, to have amounted in all to 50,000l. Of The general this 15,000l. were produced by the sale of the Mascontribution. tership of the Rolls to Sir Charles Cæsar.2 Of the remaining 35,000l., 2,200l. came from a nobleman too sickly to follow the King in person, and 24,3957. were paid by the clergy, the class of all others most deeply interested in the King's success, and most amenable to pressure from above. The whole amount contributed by the laity of England barely exceeded 8,400l., and the greater part even of this was provided by judges and other legal officials, who were almost as amenable to pressure as the clergy. The unofficial contributions certainly did not exceed 3,000l., if indeed they reached anything like that sum.3 One source of supply, indeed, was still open. The Queen 1 Windebank to the King, May 24, Clar. S. P. ii. 46. 2 I have no absolute evidence of this; but I find that Uvedale, the Treasurer of the Army, paid into the exchequer a sum of 15,2071. 75. on March 30. Two days after we learn from Garrard of Cæsar's payment. Unless there had been something to conceal, Uvedale would have kept this money in his own hands, and it does not appear how it reached him. 3 Breviates of the Receipt. |