[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1650.  Jan. 8.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1650.  April 2.] [Sidenote c:  A.D. 1650.  May 30.] [Sidenote d:  A.D. 1650.  June 4.] [Sidenote e:  A.D. 1650.  June 12.] [Sidenote f:  A.D. 1650.  June 14.] [Sidenote g:  A.D. 1650.  June 24.]

required to justify actual invasion.  No impression was made on his mind; and, though Cromwell and his brother officers earnestly solicited him to comply, “there was cause enough,” says one of the deputation, “to believe that they did not overmuch desire it."[1] The next day[a] another attempt ended with as little success; the lord general alleging the plea of infirm health and misboding conscience, sent back the last commission, and at the request of the house, the former also; and the chief command of all the forces raised, or to be raised by order of parliament, was conferred on Oliver Cromwell.[b] Thus this adventurer obtained at the same time the praise of moderation and the object of his ambition.  Immediately he left the capital for Scotland;[c] and Fairfax retired to his estate in Yorkshire, where he lived with the privacy of a country gentleman, till he once more drew the sword, not in support of the commonwealth, but in favour of the king.[2]

To a spectator who considered the preparations of the two kingdoms, there could be little doubt of the result.  Cromwell passed the Tweed[d] at the head of sixteen thousand men, most of them veterans, all habituated to military discipline, before the raw levies of the Scots had quitted their respective shires.  By order of the Scottish parliament, the army had been fixed at thirty thousand men; the nominal command had been given to the earl of Leven, the real, on account of the age and infirmities of that officer, to his relative, David Leslie, and instructions had been

[Footnote 1:  Whitelock, 460, 462.  Ludlow says, “he acted his part so to the life, that I really thought him in earnest; but the consequence made it sufficiently evident that he had no such intention” (i. 272).  Hutchinson, who was present on one of these occasions, thought him sincere.—­Hutchinson, 315.]

[Footnote 2:  Whitelock, 438, 450, 457.  Journals, Jan. 8, Feb. 25, March 30, April 15, May 2, 7, 30, June 4, 12, 14, 25, 26.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1650.  June 25.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1650.  June 26.] [Sidenote c:  A.D. 1650.  June 29.] [Sidenote d:  A.D. 1650.  July 16.]

issued that the country between Berwick and the capital should be laid waste, that the cattle and provisions should be removed or destroyed, and that the inhabitants should abandon their homes under the penalties of infamy, confiscation, and death.  In aid of this measure, reports were industriously circulated of the cruelties exercised by Cromwell in Ireland; that, wherever he came, he gave orders to put all the males between sixteen and sixty to death, to deprive all the boys between six and sixteen of their right hands, and to bore the breasts of the females with red-hot