The History of the British Army. J. W. Fortescue
flickering blades and glancing casques and swaying cuirasses, as the red-coats rolled the broken waves of the Scottish army before them. "Now let God arise and let His enemies be scattered," cried Cromwell in exultation, for the victory was won. The Scots, wedged tighter and tighter between hills and stream, were caught like rats in a pit, and like rats they ran desperately and aimlessly up the steep slope, only to be caught or turned back by the English skirmishers above them. Their horse fled as best they could with the English cavalry spurring after them, till Cromwell ordered a rally. While the broken ranks were reforming he sang the hundred and seventeenth Psalm, the chorus swelling louder and louder behind him as trooper after trooper fell into his place. Then the psalm gave way to the sharp word of command, and the horse trotted away once more to the pursuit past Dunbar and Belhaven even to Haddington. Three thousand of the Scots fell in the field; ten thousand prisoners, with the whole of the artillery and baggage and two hundred colours, were taken. It was the greatest action fought by an English army since Agincourt.
Cromwell lost no time in following up his success. On the day after the battle he sent Lambert forward with six regiments of horse to Edinburgh, and occupied the port of Leith and the whole of the town, except the Castle, without resistance. Leaving sufficient men to blockade the Castle and hold the works at Leith he pushed on against Leslie, who had entrenched himself with five thousand men at Stirling; but finding his position unassailable he returned to Edinburgh and busied himself with the reduction of the Castle, while Lambert completed the subjugation of the West. In the middle of September the Castle surrendered, and therewith all Scotland south of the Forth and Clyde was subject to the English.
1651.
At Westminster the joy over the victory of Dunbar was enthusiastic, and found vent in the grant of a medal[181] and of a gratuity to every man who had fought in the campaign. This, the first medal ever issued to an English army, bore, in spite of his protests, the effigy of Cromwell upon the obverse, no unfitting memorial of the first founder of our Army of to-day. But the struggle even now was not yet over. Royalist Scotland had been beaten at Preston, the Scotland of the Covenant at Dunbar; but Charles Stuart was able, by unscrupulous lying and shameless hypocrisy, to unite both for a last effort in his cause, and to gather a new army around that of David Leslie at Stirling. Accordingly on the 4th of February 1651 Cromwell left his winter-quarters for Stirling, but was compelled by the severity of the weather to retreat, with no further result to himself than a dangerous attack of fever and ague, which kept him on the sick-list until June.
On the 25th of June the English army was concentrated on the Pentland Hills, and from thence marched once more to Stirling. Leslie, true to the tactics which had proved so successful in the previous year, had occupied an impregnable position which no temptation could induce him to quit. After a fortnight's manœuvring, therefore, Cromwell decided, like Surrey before Flodden, to move round Leslie's left flank and to cut off his supplies from the north. It is plain, from the fact that Monk had been engaged in operations for the reduction of Inchgarvie and Burntisland on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth, that Cromwell's plans for this movement were fully matured.
July 19–20.
The first step was to send Lambert across the Firth with four thousand men to entrench himself at Queensferry. Leslie met this move by detaching a slightly inferior force against Lambert, which was utterly and disastrously routed, with a loss of five-sixths of its numbers. Ten days later Inchgarvie and Burntisland fell into Cromwell's hands, and, his new base being thus secured, he advanced quickly into Fife. Meanwhile he sent orders to General Harrison, whom he had left at Edinburgh with a reserve of three thousand horse, that he was to move at once to the English border in the event of Leslie's marching southward. By the 2nd of August he had received the surrender of Perth, but, even before he could sign the capitulation, intelligence reached him that the Scots had quitted Stirling two days before and were pouring down to the border. Leaving five or six thousand men with Monk to reduce Stirling, he at once hurried off in pursuit.
August 4.
Two days sufficed to bring his army to Edinburgh, where he halted for forty-eight hours. Harrison had already marched for the Border, and with ready intelligence had mounted some of his infantry to strengthen his little force. Lambert was now despatched with three thousand horse to hang upon the enemy's rear; a letter was despatched to the Speaker exhorting the Parliament to be of good heart; and on the 6th of August Cromwell resumed his advance. Both armies, English and Scots, were now fairly started on their race to the south. Charles, in the hope of picking up recruits, stuck to the western coast and the Welsh border, moving by Carlisle, Lancaster, and the ill-omened town of Preston. Cromwell's course lay farther east; he passed by Newburn, a scene of English defeat, and by the more famous field of Towton, where the south had first taught a lesson of respect to the north. Lambert and Harrison united, and on the 16th of August obtained contact with the enemy at Warrington, but not venturing to attack retired eastward to cover the London road and to draw closer to the line of Cromwell's march.
Sept 3.
The Ribble and the Aire once passed, the two armies began to converge. On the 22nd of August Charles halted with the Scots at Worcester and proceeded to fortify the town, and four days later Cromwell occupied Evesham. Charles had but sixteen thousand men; while Cromwell by a masterly concentration had collected no fewer than twenty-eight thousand. The militia, which had been reorganised by the Parliament in the previous year, had been called out and had answered admirably to the call. There could be little doubt of the issue of an action where the advantages both of numbers and of quality were all on one side, and there is no need to dwell on the battle fought on the anniversary of Dunbar at Worcester. It was a victory in its way as complete as Sedan: hardly a man of the Scottish army escaped. But it was also the crown of the great work of the Army, the establishment of England's supremacy in the British Isles.
CHAPTER III
The victory had not long been reported to Parliament when the House began to consider the question of reducing the forces. Silently and almost imperceptibly the strength of the Standing Army had grown since 1645 until it now amounted to thirty regiments of foot, eighteen of horse and one of dragoons, or close on fifty thousand men. Besides these there were independent companies in garrison to the number of seven thousand more, and several more regiments which were borne permanently on the Irish establishment. Five whole regiments, thirty independent companies, and two independent troops were ordered to be disbanded forthwith; other regiments were reserved for service in Ireland or to replace the disbanded companies in garrison; and the establishment for England and Scotland was fixed at eighteen regiments of foot and sixteen of horse. It appears too that the actual strength of companies was reduced from one hundred and twenty to eighty, and of troops from one hundred to sixty, thus diminishing the number of men while retaining the name of the corps intact. The system is no novelty in these days, but this is the first instance of its acceptance in the history of the Army.
1652.
1652–53.
A revolutionary Government, however, does not easily find peace. By June 1652 the recruiting officers were abroad again, and regiments were increasing their establishment owing to the outbreak of the Dutch War. The quarrel with the United Provinces was curious, inasmuch as the English commonwealth had expected sympathy from the sister-republic which had been made by English soldiers, and had even sought to unite the two republics into one. But there is no such thing as national gratitude; and the discourtesy of the Dutch soon led the English to exchange friendly negotiations first for the Act of Navigation and very shortly after for war. The story of that war belongs to the naval history of England, wherein it forms one of its most glorious pages. Never perhaps has more desperate fighting been seen than in the six furious engagements which brought the Dutch to their knees. Yet in these too the red-coats to the number of some two thousand[182] took part, under the command of men who had made their mark as military officers—Robert Blake, Richard Deane and, not least, George Monk. The last named was so utterly ignorant of all naval matters that he gave his orders in military language—"Wheel to the right," "Charge"—but he made up for all shortcomings by his coolness