Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

Safety. Pym's secret agents, moreover, were never greatly at fault, and in this case they found a useful spy in the person of a certain Roe, a clerk to Tompkins. Hassell, a King's messenger who passed constantly backwards and forwards between London and Oxford, was also guilty of indiscretions. Suddenly, on 31st May, Waller and Tompkins were arrested. Tompkins and his associate Chaloner—a leading tradesman in the city-were brought before a military tribunal presided over by Manchester, were convicted and hanged. Waller had powerful friends, a persuasive tongue and a long purse. To one or all of these he owed his life. After little more than a year's imprisonment he offered to compound for his offences by a £1,000 fine. The composition was accepted and Waller was banished. The same influences sufficed to procure his recall after a few years of exile. He obtained office under Cromwell and sat complacently in the post-Restoration Parliaments until his death at Hall Barn on the eve of the Revolution of 1688.

A

Two points remain to be noticed: the political effects of "Waller's Plot," and the question of Falkland's complicity. The discovery of the "plot" was of course fatal to any lingering hopes of peace. Pym's obduracy was thrice justified, and he was not the man to neglect any advantage which might accrue from an incident so opportune. public thanksgiving for the deliverance of Parliament was ordained; a vow or covenant was drawn up and eagerly taken by members of both Houses and the public at large;1 and the Lords were at last induced to assent to the meeting of an assembly of divines charged with the duty of devising a new government liturgy, and creed for the Established Church.

Of more immediate interest to the biographer is the question of Falkland's complicity in Waller's designs.

1 Rushworth, v., 325.

"Plot" has an invidious and question-begging connotation and had better in this connection be avoided. One thing must be constantly borne in mind. There had been no cessation of arms. The military and diplomatic games were being played concurrently in adjacent fields. Waller's design was an ingenious though dangerous attempt to combine and confuse them. He and his associates played for high stakes, and failure would probably involve a dishonourable death. But was there anything in the game of which any honourable man need be ashamed? The case against Waller has generally been allowed to go by default, and his own poltroonery on the detection of the design deprives him of any possible claim to sympathy. But for the sake of his associates it is necessary to insist that both technically and actually King and Parliament were at war, and that each therefore was free to take any means for the discomfiture of the other, despite the concurrent negotiations for peace.

That Falkland was among these associates it is impossible for the candid inquirer to doubt. Whether he was cognisant of all the details no man can say. "He conducted," says Gardiner, "the secret correspondence with the London partakers in Waller's plot, but it is impossible now to say whether he did so as a mere matter of duty, or whether he considered that all was fair against enemies who were also rebels." The case is not quite fairly put. Would Pym and Hampden, we may ask, have hesitated to embark upon similar negotiations with-say-Alderman Nixon of Oxford for the discomfiture of an enemy who was also a King? It is quite certain that they would not. According to Clarendon Falkland's intervention, whether private or official, was confined to the peace negotiation with the city men. "Mr. Tomkins sometimes writ to the Lord Falkland (for

1D.N.B.

Mr. Waller out of the cautiousness of his own nature never writ word), and by messengers signified to him 'that the number of those who desired peace and abhorred the proceedings of both houses was very considerable; and that they resolved by refusing to contribute to the war, and to submit to their ordinances, to declare and manifest themselves in that manner that the violent party in the city should not have credit enough to hinder any accomodation'. And the Lord Falkland always returned answer 'that they should expedite those expedients as soon as might be, for that delays made the war more difficult to be restrained"." If Clarendon may be trusted, Falkland's part was one to which no possible exception can be taken. Even if he were privy to the whole design, it may well be argued that it would leave no slur upon an unblemished reputation.

That Falkland was becoming enervated by the atmosphere of intrigue in which he now spent his days we may reasonably conjecture. That his health and spirits were alike giving way under the strain of incessant anxiety is clear alike from Clarendon's specific statement, and from the hint contained in his own letter to Roe.1

Passionate as was his longing for peace, it must have been with something of relief that he realised at length that the diplomatic game was over, and that peace could now be won only by the sword.

1
1 Supra, p. 63.

THE

CHAPTER IV

FALKLAND'S LAST CAMPAIGN

HE campaign of 1643 presents to us in miniature a picture of the whole Civil War. At first sight the prospect is bewildering and chaotic; fighting more or less desultory in every corner of the land, apparently uninspired by purpose or objective; a town taken here; a garrison surprised there; success in one district counterbalanced by failure in another. But on a closer scrutiny a design of high strategical importance is unmistakably revealed; the factors making for success or failure are plainly visible.

London is the King's objective; its capture is to be secured by a triple advance. Newcastle, having cleared Yorkshire of rebels, is to pierce through Cromwell's force in Lincolnshire, and advance by the Great North road on the capital. Grenville and Hopton, having made all secure in Cornwall and Devon, are to come up from the West, and keeping south of the Thames to march through Surrey and Kent on Southwark. Newcastle and Hopton having joined hands to the east of London, the King will clinch matters by an advance on the West, while the Welshmen will cross the Severn and keep everything safe between Severn and Thames. The plan was conceived with admirable strategical skill,' but it was wrecked by the operation

1 That the King was responsible for the scheme will surprise no one who recalls the Duke of Wellington's high opinion of Charles I. as a soldier.

of four unforeseen factors. unwillingness of the local levies to leave home; the dogged resolution of Essex; the germinating genius of Cromwell; these enabled the Parliamentary cause to weather the stormiest sea to which it was exposed. The diplomacy of Vane and Pym was doubtless a powerful factor in the background. Baillie is justified in taking credit for the Scots in coming to the assistance of a ruined cause. But before the Solemn League and Covenant was signed, the tide was already on the turn. "Surely," says Baillie, "it was a great act of faith in God and huge courage and unheard of compassion that moved our nation to hazard their own peace and venture their lives and all for to save a people irrecoverably ruined both in their own and all the world's eyes."1 Baillie expressed the view of the situation which any reasonable and candid person would have taken in the autumn of 1643. But looking back it is not difficult to perceive that the ultimate victory of Parliament was already implicit in the unshaken tenacity of Gloucester, Plymouth and Hull; in the revealed military weakness of the local levies; in the new organisation adopted as yet only by a single regiment in the Eastern Counties, but soon to be extended to the whole Parliamentary army; above all, in the genius of the man by whom that organisation was devised.

The command of the sea; the

Detailed description of military tactics, even the accurate diagnosis of the operation of strategical forces are beyond the scope of the present work. The merest outline must suffice.

During the late autumn of 1642 and the early spring of 1643 things went well for the King. Hopton cleared Cornwall, but could not induce his men to follow him into

1 ii., 99.

2 For this chapter generally cf. Clarendon, Hist., vol. vii., and Gardiner, C. W., i., chaps. vii.-x.

« ElőzőTovább »