Critical and Historical Essays — Volume 1Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
History
Critical and Historical Essays — Volume 1
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
English literature -- History and criticism; Great Britain -- History
Hampden spared neither his fortune nor his person in the cause.
He subscribed two thousand pounds to the public service. He took a
colonel’s commission in the army, and went into Buckinghamshire to
raise a regiment of infantry. His neighbours eagerly enlisted under
his command. His men were known by their green uniform, and by their
standard, which bore on one side the watchword of the Parliament,
“God with us,” and on the other the device of Hampden, “Vestigia nulla
retrorsum.” This motto well described the line of conduct which he
pursued. No member of his party had been so temperate, while there
remained a hope that legal and peaceable measures might save the
country. No member of his party showed so much energy and vigour when it
became necessary to appeal to arms. He made himself thoroughly master
of his military duty, and “performed it,” to use the words of Clarendon,
“upon all occasions most punctually.” The regiment which he had raised
and trained was considered as one of the best in the service of the
Parliament. He exposed his person in every action with an intrepidity
which made him conspicuous even among thousands of brave men. “He was,”
says Clarendon, “of a personal courage equal to his best parts; so that
he was an enemy not to be wished wherever he might have been made a
friend, and as much to be apprehended where he was so, as any man could
deserve to be.” Though his military career was short, and his military
situation subordinate, he fully proved that he possessed the talents of
a great general, as well as those of a great statesman.
We shall not attempt to give a history of the war. Lord Nugent’s account
of the military operations is very animating and striking. Our abstract
would be dull, and probably unintelligible. There was, in fact, for some
time no great and connected system of operations on either side. The war
of the two parties was like the war of Arimanes and Oromasdes, neither
of whom, according to the Eastern theologians, has any exclusive domain,
who are equally omnipresent, who equally pervade all space, who carry on
their eternal strife within every particle of matter. There was a petty
war in almost every county. A town furnished troops to the Parliament
while the manor-house of the neighbouring peer was garrisoned for the
King. The combatants were rarely disposed to march far from their
own homes. It was reserved for Fairfax and Cromwell to terminate this
desultory warfare, by moving one overwhelming force successively against
all the scattered fragments of the royal party.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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