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The entire army of Foot was to be disbanded, willing or unwilling, on the terms fixed: Fairfax's own regiment at Chelmsford on June 1, Hewson's at Bishop's Stortford on June 3, Lambert's at Saffron Walden on June 5, and so on regiment by regiment, each on a named day and at a named place, a Committee of the two Houses to be present at each disbanding, and Skippon also to be present to enlist such of the disbanded men as would go to Ireland.
The siege of this city by Fairfax, begun May 1, a week after the King had left it, and continued for seven or eight weeks with the help of Cromwell and Skippon, must have been a matter of considerable personal interest to Milton, and of more interest to his wife.
'Would you match the base Skippon, and Massey, and Brown, With the barons of England, who fight for the crown? he! he! their own names. Whilst the lads are sent to those hot-beds of pride and folly colleges, whence they return with a greater contempt for everything 'low, and especially for their own pedigree, than they went with.
A committee was established with power to raise forces for the defence of the nation: the favourite general Skippon was appointed to provide for the safety of the capital; and the most positive orders were sent to Fairfax not to suffer any one of the corps under his command to approach within forty miles of London. Every day the contest assumed a more threatening aspect.
In sum, an intellectus universalis beyond all that we reade of Picus Mirandula, and other precoce witts, and yet withal a very humble child.’ This prodigy was the son of the Rev. Henry Wotton, minister of Wrentham, Suffolk. Sir William Skippon, a parishioner, in a letter yet extant, describes the wonderful achievements of the little fellow when but five years old.
The leaders saw that they had but one resource, to win by conciliation. These concessions, aided by the terror which the victory at Maidstone inspired, and by the vigilance of Skippon, who intercepted all communication between the royalists, and the party at Blackheath, defeated the project of Goring.
The votes of the two houses were then read to the men, and Skippon, having made a long harangue in commendation of the votes, concluded by asking whether, with these concessions, they were not all satisfied. "To that no answer can be returned," exclaimed a voice from the ranks, "till your proposals have been submitted to, and approved by, the council of officers and agitators."
It was a great point with the Army whether Skippon would accept the Irish Field-Marshalship; and at one of the conferences, when Colonel Hammond was expressing this for his comrades, and saying that nothing would be more likely to induce them to enlist for Ireland than the knowledge that that "great soldier" was to be in command, "All, all!" cried the assembled officers, "Fairfax and Cromwell, and we all go!"
The first attempts of this new general and new army were at Oxford, which, by the neighbourhood of a numerous garrison in Abingdon, began to be very much straitened for provisions; and the new forces under Cromwell and Skippon, one lieutenant-general, the other major-general to Fairfax, approaching with a design to block it up, the king left the place, supposing his absence would draw them away, as it soon did.
Through the greater part of May, Fairfax being then in London, Cromwell, and his fellow-commissioners, Skippon, Ireton, and Fleetwood, remained at Saffron Walden, busy in their work of mediation. Three successive letters to Speaker Lenthall reported the amount of their success. It was next to nothing.
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