on the conduct of the Parliament itself, but greatly more on the conduct
of the generals and armies that held up its banners in various parts of
England. And how, since our last glimpses of the state of the war in the
dark month of Hampden's death and the month following that (June and July
1643), had the war been going on? Much as before. What do we see? A siege
here and a siege there, a skirmish here and a skirmish there, ending
sometimes for the Parliament, but as often for the King; amid all these
sieges and skirmishes no battle of any magnitude, save the first Battle
of Newbery (Sept. 20, 1643), where Lord Falkland, weary of his life, was
slain, and also the Royalist Earls of Carnarvon and Sunderland, but
otherwise the damage to the King was inconsiderable; Essex still heavy
and solemn, an excellent man, but a woful commander-in-chief; little Sir
William Waller still the favourite and set up against Essex, but
confidence in him somewhat shaken by his recent defeats; the Fairfaxes in
the north, and others in other parts, doing at best but respectably;
Cromwell, it is true, a marked man and always successful wherever he
appeared, but appearing yet only as Colonel Cromwell! "For the present
the Parliament side is running down the brae," wrote the sagacious
Baillie, Sept. 22, 1643; and again, more pithily, Dec. 7, "They may tig-
tag on this way this twelvemonth." The only remedy, Baillie thought--the
only thing that would change the sluggish "tig-tagging" of Essex and the
English into something like what a war should be--was the expected
coming-in of the Scots. For this event the English Parliamentarians also
longed vehemently. "All things are expected from God and the Scots" is
Baillie's description of the feeling in London in the winter of 1643-4.
For, though the bringing in of a Scottish force auxiliary to the English
army had been arranged for in the autumn--though it was for that end that
the English Parliament had sent Commissioners to Edinburgh, had accepted
Henderson's "Solemn League and Covenant," and had admitted Scottish
Commissioners into the Westminster Assembly--yet the completing of the