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Commons Journals, Wednesday, 23d August, 1648: Ordered, That the sum of Two-hundred Pounds be bestowed upon Major Berry, and the sum of One-hundred Pounds upon Edward Sexby, who brought the very good news of the very great Success obtained, by the great mercy of God, against the whole Scots Army in Lancashire, and That the said respective sums shall be' --in short, paid directly. Of Major Berry, Richard Baxter's friend, we have already heard. Captain Edward Sexby, here known to us for the first time, will again turn up, little to his advantage, by and by. A Day of universal Thanksgiving for this 'wonderful great Success' is likewise ordered; and a printed schedule of items to be thankful for, is despatched, 'to the number of 10,000,' into all places.*

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Colchester Siege, one of the most desperate defences, being now plainly without object, terminates, on Monday next. 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.

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

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*Commons Journals, v., 685. † 28 Aug., Rushworth, vii., 1242.

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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 'very able men' who, with all their ability,' have never succeeded in any enterprise whatever!

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 in 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 Leslie 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!' *

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Cromwell proceeds northward, goes at last to Edinburgh itself, to compose this strange state of matters.

*Turner, ubi supra; Guthry's Memoirs (Glasgow, 1748), p. 285

LETTERS XLII.-LI.

MONRO with the rearward of Hamilton's beaten Army did not march 'straight back' to Scotland as Turner told us, but very obliquely back; lingering for several weeks on the South side of the Border; collecting remnants of English, Scotch, and even Irish Malignants, not without hopes of making a new Army from them, cruelly spoiling those Northern Counties in the interim. Cromwell, waiting first till Lambert with the force sent in pursuit of Hamilton can rejoin the main Army, moves Northward, to deal with these broken parties, and with broken Scotland generally. The following Ten Letters bring him as far as Edinburgh: whither let us now attend him with such lights as they yield.

LETTER XLII.

A PRIVATE Letter to my Lord Wharton; to congratulate him on some particular mercy,' seemingly the birth of an heir, and to pour out his sense of these great general mercies. This Philip Lord Wharton is of the Committee of Derby House, the Executive in those months; it is probable* Cromwell had been sending despatches to them, and had hastily enclosed this in the Packet.

Philip Lord Wharton seems to have been a zealous Puritan, much concerned with Preachers, Chaplains, &c., in his domestic establishment; and full of Parliamentary and Politico-religious business in public. He had a regiment of his own raising at Edgehill fight; but it was one of those that ran away; whereupon the unhappy Colonel took refuge 'in a sawpit,' says Royalism confidently, crowing over it without end.† A quarrel between him and Sir Henry Midmay, Member for Malden, about Sir

* Commons Journals, vi., 6, 5 September

† Wood's Athenæ, iii., 177, and in all manner of Pamphlets elsewhere.

Henry's saying, "He, Wharton, had made his peace at Oxford," in November, 1643, is noted in the Commons Journals, iii., 300. It was to him, about the time of this Cromwell Letter, that one Osborne, a distracted King's flunkey, had written, accusing Major Rolf, a soldier under Hammond, of attempting to poison Charles in the Isle of Wight !*-This Philip's patrimonial estate, Wharton, still a Manorhouse of somebody, lies among the Hills on the southwest side of Westmoreland; near the sources of the Eden, the Swale rising on the other watershed not far off. He seems however to have dwelt at Upper Winchington, Bucks, 'a seat near Great Wycomb.' He lived to be a Privy Councillor to William of Orange. He died in 1696. Take this other anecdote, once a very famous one.

'James Stewart of Blantyre in Scotland, son of a Treasurer Stewart, and himself a great favorite of King James, was a gallant youth; came up to London with great hopes: but a discord falling out between him and the young Lord Wharton, they went out to single combat each against the other; and at the first thrust each of them killed the other, and they fell dead in one another's arms on the place.' The 'place' was Islington fields; the date 8th November, 1609. The tragedy gave rise to much balladsinging and other rumor.§ Our Philip is that slain Wharton's Son.

This Letter has been preserved by Thurloe: four blank spaces ornamented with due asterisks occur in it,-Editor Birch does not inform us whether from tearing off the Seal, or why. In these blank spaces the conjectural sense, which I distinguish here as usual by commas, is occasionally somewhat questionable.

For the Right Honorable the Lord Wharton: These.

MY LORD,

'Near Knaresborough,' 2d September, 1648.

You know how untoward I am at this business of writing; yet a word. I beseech the Lord make us sensible of this

* Wood, iii., 501; Pamphlets; Commons Journals, &c.

† Wood, iv., 407, 542; Fasti, i., 335; Nicolas's Synopsis of the Peerage. Scotstarvet's Staggering State (Edinburgh, 1754, a very curious little Book), p. 32.

§ Bibliotheca Topographica, no. xlix.

great mercy here, which surely was much more than 'the sense of it' the House expresseth.* I trust to have, through' the goodness of our God, time and opportunity to speak of it to you face to face. When we think of our God, what are we? Oh, His mercy to the whole society of saints,-despised, jeered saints.! Let them mock on. Would we were all saints! The best of us are, God knows, poor weak saints ;— yet saints; if not sheep, yet lambs; and must be fed. We have daily bread, and shall have it, in despite of all enemies. There's enough in our Father's house, and He dispenseth it. I think, through these outward mercies, as we call them, Faith, Patience, Love, Hope are exercised and perfected,-yea, Christ formed, and grows to a perfect man within us. I know not well how to distinguish: the difference is only in the subject, not in the object;' to a worldly man they are outward, to a saint Christian; but I dispute not.

My Lord, I rejoice in your particular mercy. I hope that it is so to you. If so, it shall not hurt you; not make you plot or shift for the young Baron to make him great. You will say, "He is God's to dispose of, and guide for," and there you will leave him.

My love to the dear little Lady, better to me' than the child. The Lord bless you both. My love and service to all Friends high and low; if you will, to my Lord and Lady Mulgrave and Will Hill. I am truly,

Your faithful friend and humblest servant,

OLIVER CROMWELL.

During these very days, perhaps it was exactly two days after, 'on Monday last,' if that mean 4th September,||-Monro, lying about Appleby, has a party of horse 'sent into the Bishoprick ;' firing 'divers houses' thereabouts, and not forgetting to plunder 'the Lord Wharton's tenants' by the road: Cromwell penetrating towards Berwick, yet still at a good distance, scatters this and

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* The House calls it a wonderful great mercy and success,' this Preston victory (Commons Journals, v., 680) ;—and then passes on to other matters, not quite adequately conscious that its life had been saved hereby! What fire was blazing, and how high in Wales, and then in Lancashire, is known only in perfection to those that trampled it out.

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† Spiritual food, encouragement of merciful Providence, from day to day. There follows here in the Birch edition: As our eyes' [seven stars] "behinde, then wee can' [seven stars] 'we for him :' words totally unintelligible; and not worth guessing at, the original not being here, but only Birch's questionable reading of it.

§ Thurloe, i., 99.

|| Cromwelliana, p. 45.

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