of Montrose, one of the bravest, politest, and most finished characters of that age, was taken prisoner, as he endeavoured to raise the Highlanders in the royal cause; and, being brought to Edinburgh, was hanged on a gibbet thirty feet high, then quartered, and his limbs stuck up in the principal towns of the kingdom. Yet, notwithstanding all this severity to his followers, Charles ventured into Scotland, and had the mortification to enter the gate of Edinburgh, where the limbs of that faithful adherent were still exposed.

Being now entirely at the mercy of the gloomy and austere zealots who had been the cause of his father's misfortunes, he soon found that he had only exchanged exile for imprisonment. He was surrounded and incessantly importuned by the fanatical clergy, who obtruded their religious instructions, and obliged him to listen to long sermons, in which they seldom failed to stigmatise the late king as a tyrant, to accuse his mother of idolatry, and himself of an untoward disposition. Six sermons a day were his usual allowance; and, though they laboured to outgo each other in absurdity, yet he was denied the small consolation of laughter. In short, the clergy having brought royalty under their feet, were resolved to keep it still subservient, and to trample upon it with all the contumely of successful upstarts. Charles for a while bore all their insolence with hypocritical tranquillity, and even pretended to be highly edified by their instructions. He once, indeed, attempted to escape from among them; but, being brought back, he owned the greatness of his error; he testified repentance for what he had done, and looked about for another opportunity of escaping.

In the mean time Cromwell, who had been appointed to the command of the army in Ireland, prosecuted the war in that kingdom with his usual success. He

had to combat against the royalists commanded by the duke of Ormond, and the native Irish, led on by O'Neal. But such ill-connected and barbarous troops could give very little opposition to Cromwell's more numerous forces, conducted by such a general, and emboldened by long success. He soon overran the whole country; and, after some time, all the towns revolted in his favour, and opened their gates at his approach. But in these conquests, as in all the rest of his actions, there appeared a brutal ferocity that would tarnish the most heroic valour. In order to intimidate the natives from defending their towns, he, with a barbarous policy, put every garrison that made any resistance to the sword. He entered the city of Drogheda by storm, and indiscriminately butchered men, women, and children; so that only one escaped the dreadful carnage to give an account of the massacre. He was now in the train of speedily reducing the whole kingdom to subjection, A. D. when he was called over by the parliament to 1650. defend his own country against the Scots, who, having espoused the royal cause had raised a considerable army to support it.

After Cromwell's return to England, upon taking his seat, he received the thanks of the house, by the mouth of the speaker, for the services he had done the commonwealth in Ireland. They then proceeded to deliberate upon choosing a general for conducting the war in Scotland, which Fairfax refusing upon principle, as he had all along declined opposing the presbyterians, the command necessarily devolved upon Cromwell. Fairfax, from that time forward, declined meddling in public affairs; but, sending his commission of generalissimo to the house, he retired to spend the remainder of his life in peace and privacy. Cromwell, eager to pursue the path of ambition that now lay before him, and

being declared captain-general of the forces, boldly set forward for Scotland, at the head of an army of sixteen thousand men.

The Scots, in the mean time, who had invited over their wretched king to be a prisoner, not a ruler, among them, prepared to meet the invasion. They had given the command of their army to general Lesley, a good officer, who formed a proper plan for their defence. This prudent commander knew, that, though superior in numbers, his army was much inferior in discipline and experience to the English; and he kept himself carefully within his entrenchments. After some pre

vious motions on one side and the other, Cromwell, at last, saw himself in a very disadvantageous post near Dunbar, and his antagonist waiting deliberately to take advantage of his situation. But the madness of the Scotish clergy saved him from the imminent disgrace which was likely to attend him, and to their vain inspirations he owed his security. These had, it seems, been night and day wrestling with the Lord in prayer, as they termed it; and they at last fancied that they had obtained the superiority. Revelations, they said, were made to them, that the heretical army, together with Agag the general, would be delivered in their hands. Upon the assurances of these visions, they obliged their general, in spite of all his remonstrances, to descend into the plain, and give the English battle.

The English had also their visions and their assurances. Cromwell, in his turn, had been wrestling with the Lord, and had come off with success. When he was told that the Scots were coming down to engage, he assured his soldiers that the Lord had delivered the enemy into his hands; and he ordered his army to sing psalms, as if already possessed of a certain victory. The Scots, though double the number of the English,

were soon put to flight, and pursued with great slaughter, while Cromwell, it is said, did not lose above forty men in all.

The unfortunate king, who hated all the Scotish army, and only dreaded Cromwell, was well enough pleased at the defeat, which belied all the assurances of his oppressors. It was attended also with this good consequence to him, that it served to introduce him to a greater share of power than he had hitherto been permitted to enjoy. He now, therefore, put himself at the head of the Scotish troops that had survived the defeat ; and these he strengthened by the royalists, whom the covenanters had some time before excluded from his

A. D. service. Cromwell, however, still followed his 1651. blow, pursued the king's forces towards Perth, and, cutting off their provision, made it impossible for Charles to maintain his forces in that country.

In this terrible exigence he embraced a resolution worthy of a prince who was willing to hazard all for empire. Observing that the way was open to England, he resolved immediately to march into that country, where he expected to be reinforced by all the royalists. His generals were persuaded to enter into the same views; and with one consent the Scotish army, to the number of fourteen thousand men, made an irruption southwards.

But Charles soon found himself disappointed in the expectation of increasing his army. The Scots, terrified at the prospect of so hazardous an enterprise, fell from him in great numbers. The English, affrighted at the name of his opponent, dreaded to join him; but his mortifications were still more increased as he arrived at Worcester, when informed that Cromwell was marching against him with hasty strides, with an army increased to thirty-five thousand men. The news had

scarcely arrived when that active general himself appeared; and, falling upon the town on all sides, broke in upon the disordered royalists. The streets were strewed with slaughter, the whole Scotish army were either killed or taken prisoners, and the king himself, having given many proofs of personal valour, was obliged to fly.

Imagination can scarcely conceive adventures more romantic, or distresses more severe, than those which attended the young king's escape from the scene of slaughter. After his hair was cut off, the better to disguise his person, he wrought for some days in the habit of a peasant, cutting faggots in a wood. He next made an attempt to retire into Wales, under the conduct of one Pendrel, a poor farmer, who was sincerely attached to his cause. In this attempt, however, he was disappointed, every pass being guarded to prevent his escape. Being obliged to return, he met one colonel Careless, who, like himself, had escaped the carnage at Worcester; and it was in his company that he was obliged to climb a spreading oak, among the thick branches of which they passed the day together, while they heard the soldiers of the enemy in pursuit of them below. Thence he passed with imminent danger, feeling all the varieties of famine, fatigue, and pain, till he arrived at the house of colonel Lane, a zealous royalist, in Staffordshire. There he deliberated about the means of escaping into France; and Bristol being supposed the most convenient port, it was agreed that he should ride thither, before this gentleman's sister, on a visit to Mrs. Norton, who lived in the neighbourhood of that city. During this journey he every day met with persons whose faces he knew; and at one time passed through a whole regiment of the enemy's army.

When they arrived at Mrs. Norton's, the first person