[213] Rymer, sub Edw. I. et II. passim. Thus, in 1297, a writ to the sheriff of Yorkshire directs him to make known to all, qui habent 20 libratas terræ et reditus per annum, tam illis qui non tenent de nobis in capite quam illis qui tenent, ut de equis et armis sibi provideant et se probarent indilatè; ita quod sint prompti et parati ad veniendum ad nos et eundum cum propriâ personâ nostrâ, pro defensione ipsorum et totius regni nostri prædicti quandocunque pro ipsis duxerimus demandandum. ii. 864.

[214] Stat. 1 Edw. III. c. 5.

[215] 25 Edw. III. c. 8. 4 H. IV. c. 13.

[216] 4 and 5 Philip and Mary, c. 3. The Harleian manuscripts are the best authority for the practice of pressing soldiers to serve in Ireland or elsewhere, and are full of instances. The Mouldys and Bullcalfs were in frequent requisition. See vols. 309, 1926, 2219, and others. Thanks to Humphrey Wanley's diligence, the analysis of these papers in the catalogue will save the enquirer the trouble of reading, or the mortification of finding he cannot read, the terrible scrawl in which they are generally written.

[217] Wilkins's Leges Anglo-Saxonicæ, p. 333; Lyttleton's Henry II., iii. 354.

[218] Stat. 13 E. I.

[219] 5 Philip and Mary, c. 2.

[220] 1 Jac. c. 25, § 46. An order of council, in Dec. 1638, that every man having lands of inheritance to the clear yearly value of £200 should be chargeable to furnish a light-horse man, every one of £300 estate to furnish a lance, at the discretion of the lord lieutenant, was unwarranted by any existing law, and must be reckoned among the violent stretches of the prerogative at that time. Rushw. Abr. ii. 500.

[221] Rymer, xix. 310.

[222] Grose's Military Antiquities, i. 150. The word artillery was used in that age for the long-bow.

[223] Whitelock maintained, both on this occasion, and at the treaty of Uxbridge, that the power of the militia resided in the king and two houses jointly. Pp. 55, 129. This, though not very well expressed, can only mean that it required an act of parliament to determine and regulate it.

[224] See the list of those recommended, Parl. Hist. 1083. Some of these were royalists; but on the whole, three-fourths of the military force of England would have been in the hands of persons, who, though men of rank, and attached to the monarchy, had given Charles no reason to hope that they would decline to obey any order which the parliament might issue, however derogatory or displeasing to himself.

[225] "When this bill had been with much ado accepted, and first read, there were few men who imagined it would ever receive further countenance; but now there were very few who did not believe it to be a very necessary provision for the peace and safety of the kingdom. So great an impression had the late proceedings made upon them, that with little opposition it passed the Commons, and was sent up to the Lords." Clarend. ii. 180.

[226] Clarendon, ii. 375; Parl. Hist. 1077, 1106, etc. It may be added, that the militia bill, as originally tendered to the king by the two houses, was ushered in by a preamble asserting that there had been a most dangerous and desperate design on the House of Commons, the effect of the bloody counsels of the papists, and other ill-affected persons, who had already raised a rebellion in Ireland. Clar. p. 336. Surely he could not have passed this, especially the last allusion, without recording his own absolute dishonour: but it must be admitted, that on the king's objection they omitted this preamble, and also materially limited the powers of the lords lieutenant to be appointed under the bill.

[227] A declaration of the grievances of the kingdom, and the remedies proposed, dated April 1, may be found in the Parliamentary History, p. 1155. But that work does not notice that it had passed the Commons on Feb. 19, before the king had begun to move towards the north. Commons' Journals. It seems not to have pleased the House of Lords, who postponed its consideration, and was much more grievous to the king than the nineteen propositions themselves. One proposal was to remove all papists from about the queen; that is, to deprive her of the exercise of her religion, guaranteed by her marriage contract. To this objection Pym replied that the House of Commons had only to consider the law of God and the law of the land; that they must resist idolatry, lest they incur the divine wrath, and must see the laws of this kingdom executed; that the public faith is less than that they owe to God, against which no contract can oblige, neither can any bind us against the law of the kingdom. Id. 1162.

[228] Parl. Hist. 702.

[229] Clarendon, p. 452. Upon this passage in the remonstrance a division took place, when it was carried by 103 to 61. Parl. Hist. 1302. The words in the old form of coronation oath, as preserved in a bill of parliament under Henry IV., concerning which this grammatico-political contention arose, are the following: "Concedis justas leges et consuetudines esse tenendas, et promittis per te eas esse protegendas, et ad honorem Dei corroborandas, quas vulgus elegerit, secundum vires tuas?" It was maintained by one side that elegerit should be construed in the future tense, while the other contended for the præterperfect. But even if the former were right, as to the point of Latin construction, though consuetudines seems naturally to imply a past tense, I should by no means admit the strange inference that the king was bound to sanction all laws proposed to him. His own assent is involved in the expression, "quas vulgus elegerit," which was introduced, on the hypothesis of the word being in the future tense, as a security against his legislation without consent of the people in parliament. The English coronation oath, which Charles had taken, excludes the future: Sir, will you grant to hold and keep the laws and rightful customs, which the commonalty of this your kingdom have?

[230] See what is said as to this by P. Orleans, iii. 87, and by Madame de Motteville, i. 268. Her intended journey to Spa, in July 1641, which was given up on the remonstrance of parliament, is highly suspicious. The house, it appears, had received even then information that the Crown jewels were to be carried away. Nalson, ii. 391.

[231] The impeachments of Lord Finch and of Judge Berkeley for high treason are at least as little justifiable in point of law as that of Strafford. Yet, because the former of these was moved by Lord Falkland, Clarendon is so far from objecting to it, that he imputes as a fault to the parliamentary leaders their lukewarmness in the prosecution, and insinuates that they were desirous to save Finch. See especially the new edition of Clarendon, vol. i. Appendix. But they might reasonably think that Finch was not of sufficient importance to divert their attention from the grand apostate, whom they were determined to punish. Finch fled to Holland; so that then it would have been absurd to take much trouble about his impeachment: Falkland, however, opened it to the Lords, 14 Jan. 1641, in a speech containing full as many extravagant propositions as any of St. John's. Berkeley, besides his forwardness about ship-money, had been notorious for subserviency to the prerogative. The house sent the usher of the black rod to the court of King's Bench, while the judges were sitting, who took him away to prison; "which struck a great terror," says Whitelock, "in the rest of his brethren then sitting in Westminster Hall, and in all his profession." The impeachment against Berkeley for high treason ended in his paying a fine of £10,000. But what appears strange and unjustifiable is, that the houses suffered him to sit for some terms as a judge, with this impeachment over his head. The only excuse for this is, that there were a great many vacancies on that bench.

[232] Journals, Aug. 30 and Nov. 9. It may be urged in behalf of these ordinances, that the king had gone into Scotland against the wish of the two houses, and after refusing to appoint a custos regni at their request. But if the exigency of the case might justify, under those circumstances, the assumption of an irregular power, it ought to have been limited to the period of the sovereign's absence.

[233] Parl. Hist. 678, et alibi; Journals, passim. Clarendon, i. 475, says this began to pass all bounds after the act rendering them indissoluble. "It had never," he says, "been attempted before this parliament to commit any one to prison, except for some apparent breach of privilege, such as the arrest of one of their members, or the like." Instances of this, however, had occurred before, of which I have mentioned in another place the grossest, that of Floyd, in 1621. The Lords, in March 1642, condemned one Sandford, a tailor, for cursing the parliament, to be kept at work in Bridewell during his life, besides some minor inflictions. Rushworth. A strange order was made by the Commons, Dec. 10, 1641, that, Sir William Earl having given information of some dangerous words spoken by certain persons, the speaker shall issue a warrant to apprehend such persons as Sir William Earl should point out.

[234] The entry of this in the journals is too characteristic of the tone assumed in the Commons to be omitted. "This committee (after naming some of the warmest men) is appointed to prepare heads for a conference with the Lords, and to acquaint them what bills this house hath passed and sent up to their lordships, which much concern the safety of the kingdom, but have had no consent of their lordships unto them; and that, this house being the representative body of the whole kingdom, and their lordships being but as particular persons, and coming to parliament in a particular capacity, that if they shall not be pleased to consent to the passing of those acts and others necessary to the preservation and safety of the kingdom, that then this house, together with such of the lords that are more sensible of the safety of the kingdom, may join together and represent the same unto his majesty." This was on December 3, 1641, before the argument from necessity could be pretended, and evidently contains the germ of the resolution of February 1649, that the House of Lords was useless.

The resolution was moved by Mr. Pym; and on Mr. Godolphin's objecting, very sensibly, that if they went to the king with the lesser part of the Lords, the greater part of the Lords might go to the king with the lesser part of them, he was commanded to withdraw (Verney MS.); and an order appears on the journals, that on Tuesday next the house would take into consideration the offence now given by words spoken by Mr. Godolphin. Nothing further, however, seems to have taken place.

[235] This was carried Jan. 27, 1642, by a majority of 223 to 123, the largest number, I think, that voted for any question during the parliament. Richmond was an eager courtier, and perhaps an enemy to the constitution, which may account for the unusual majority in favour of his impeachment, but cannot justify it. He had merely said, on a proposition to adjourn, "Why should we not adjourn for six months?"

[236] Parl. Hist. 1147, 1150, 1188; Clarendon, ii. 284, 346.

[237] Clarendon, 322. Among other petitions presented at this time, the noble author inserts one from the porters of London. Mr. Brodie asserts of this, that "it is nowhere to be found or alluded to, so far as I recollect, except in Clarendon's History; and I have no hesitation in pronouncing it a forgery by that author, to disgrace the petitions which so galled him and his party. The journals of the Commons give an account of every petition; and I have gone over them with the utmost care, in order to ascertain whether such a petition ever was presented, and yet cannot discover a trace of it."—iii. 306. This writer is much too precipitate and passionate. No sensible man will believe Clarendon to have committed so foolish and useless a forgery; and as to Mr. B.'s diligent perusal of the journals, this petition is fully noticed, though not inserted at length, on the 3rd of February.

[238] Nalson, ii. 234, 245.

[239] The bishops had so few friends in the House of Commons, that in the debate arising out of this protest, all agreed that they should be charged with treason, except one gentleman, who said he thought them only mad, and proposed that they should be sent to Bedlam instead of the Tower. Even Clarendon bears rather hard on the protest; chiefly, as is evident, because it originated with Williams. In fact, several of these prelates had not courage to stand by what they had done, and made trivial apologies. Parl. Hist. 996. Whether the violence was such as to form a complete justification for their absenting themselves, is a question of fact which we cannot well determine. Three bishops continued at their posts, and voted against the bill for removing them from the House of Lords. See a passage from Hall's "Hard Measure," in Wordsworth's Eccles. Biogr. v. 317. The king always entertained a notion that this act was null in itself; and in one of his proclamations from York, not very judiciously declares his intention to preserve the privileges of the three estates of parliament. The Lords admitted the twelve bishops to bail; but, with their usual pusillanimity, recommitted them on the Commons' expostulation. Parl. Hist. 1092.

[240] May, p. 187, insinuates that the civil war should have been prevented by more vigorous measures on the part of the parliament. And it might probably have been in their power to have secured the king's person before he reached York. But the majority were not ripe for such violent proceedings.

[241] These words are ascribed to Lord Chatham, in a speech of Mr. Grattan, according to Lord John Russell, in his Essay on the History of the English Government, p. 55.

[242] Clarendon has several remarkable passages, chiefly towards the end of the fifth book of his History, on the slowness and timidity of the royalist party before the commencement of the civil war. The peers at York, forming, in fact, a majority of the upper house, for there were nearly forty of them, displayed much of this. Want of political courage was a characteristic of our aristocracy at this period, bravely as many behaved in the field. But I have no doubt that a real jealousy of the king's intentions had a considerable effect.

They put forth a declaration, signed by all their hands, on the 15th of June 1642, professing before God their full persuasion that the king had no design to make war on the parliament, and that they saw no colour of preparations or counsels that might reasonably beget a belief of any such designs; but that all his endeavours tended to the settlement of the protestant religion, the just privileges of parliament, the liberty of the subject, etc. This was an ill-judged, and even absurd piece of hypocrisy, calculated to degrade the subscribers; since the design of raising troops was hardly concealed, and every part of the king's conduct since his arrival at York manifested it. The commission of array, authorising certain persons in each county to raise troops, was in fact issued immediately after this declaration. It is rather mortifying to find Lord Falkland's name, not to mention others, in this list; but he probably felt it impossible to refuse his signature, without throwing discredit on the king; and no man engaged in a party ever did, or ever can, act with absolute sincerity; or at least he can be of no use to his friends, if he does adhere to this uncompromising principle.

The commission of array was ill-received by many of the king's friends, as not being conformable to law. Clarendon, iii. 91. Certainly it was not so; but it was justifiable as the means of opposing the parliament's ordinance for the militia, at least equally illegal. This, however, shows very strongly the cautious and constitutional temper of many of the royalists, who could demur about the legality of a measure of necessity, since no other method of raising an army would have been free from similar exception. The same reluctance to enter on the war was displayed in the propositions for peace, which the king, in consequence of his council's importunity, sent to the two houses through the Earl of Southampton, just before he raised his standard at Nottingham.

[243] According to a list made by the House of Lords, May 25, 1642, the peers with the king at York were thirty-two; those who remained at Westminster, forty-two. But of the latter, more than ten joined the others before the commencement of the war, and five or six afterwards; two or three of those at York returned. During the war there were at the outside thirty peers who sat in the parliament.

[244] Life of Clarendon, p. 56.

[245] May, p. 165.

[246] Both sides claimed the victory. May, who thinks that Essex, by his injudicious conduct after the battle, lost the advantage he had gained in it, admits that the effect was to strengthen the king's side. "Those who thought his success impossible began to look upon him as one who might be a conqueror, and many neuters joined him."—P. 176. Ludlow is of the same opinion as to Essex's behaviour and its consequences: "Our army, after some refreshment at Warwick, returned to London, not like men that had obtained a victory, but as if they had been beaten."—P. 52. This shows that they had not in fact obtained much of a victory; and Lord Wharton's report to parliament almost leads us to think the advantage, upon the whole, to have been with the king. Parl. Hist. ii. 1495.

[247] May, 212; Baillie, 373, 391.

[248] May, Baillie, Mrs. Hutchinson, are as much of this opinion as Sir Philip Warwick and other royalist writers. It is certain that there was a prodigious alarm, and almost despondency, among the parliamentarians. They immediately began to make entrenchments about London, which were finished in a month. May, p. 214. In the Somers Tracts, iv. 534, is an interesting letter from a Scotsman then in London, giving an account of these fortifications, which, considering the short time employed about them, seem to have been very respectable, and such as the king's army, with its weak cavalry and bad artillery, could not easily have carried. Lord Sunderland, four days before the battle of Newbury wherein he was killed, wrote to his wife, that the king's affairs had never been in a more prosperous condition; that sitting down before Gloscester had prevented their finishing the war that year, "which nothing could keep us from doing, if we had a month's more time." Sidney Letters, ii. 671. He alludes in the same letters to the divisions in the royal party.

[249] Parl. Hist. iii. 45, 48. It seems natural to think that, if the moderate party were able to contend so well against their opponents, after the desertion of a great many royalist members who had joined the king, they would have maintained a decisive majority, had these continued in their places. But it is to be considered, on the other hand, that the king could never have raised an army, if he had not been able to rally the peers and gentry round his banner, and that in his army lay the real secret of the temporary strength of the pacific party.

[250] Parl. Hist. iii. 68, 94; Clarendon; May; Whitelock. If we believe the last (p. 68), the king, who took as usual a very active part in the discussions upon this treaty, would frequently have been inclined to come into an adjustment of terms; if some of the more war-like spirits about him (glancing apparently at Rupert) had not over persuaded his better judgment. This, however, does not accord with what Clarendon tells us of the queen's secret influence, nor indeed with all we have reason to believe of the king's disposition during the war.

[251] Life of Clarendon, p. 79. This induced the king to find pretexts for avoiding the cessation, and was the real cause of his refusal to restore the Earl of Northumberland to his post of lord admiral during this treaty of Oxford, which was urged by Hyde. That peer was, at this time, and for several months afterwards, inclining to come over to the king; but, on the bad success of Holland and Bedford in their change of sides, he gave into the opposite course of politics, and joined the party of Lords Say and Wharton, in determined hostility to the king.

Dr. Lingard has lately thrown doubts upon this passage in Clarendon, but upon grounds which I do not clearly understand. Hist. of Engl. x. 208, note. That no vestige of its truth should appear, as he observes, in the private correspondence between Charles and his consort (if he means the letters taken at Naseby, and I know no other), is not very singular; as the whole of that correspondence is of a much later date.

[252] I cannot discover in the Journals any division on this impeachment. But Hollis inveighs against it in his memoirs as one of the flagrant acts of St. John's party; and there is an account of the debate on this subject in the Somers Tracts, v. 500; whence it appears that it was opposed by Maynard, Waller, Whitelock, and others; but supported by Pym, Strode, Long, Glynn, and by Martin with his usual fury and rudeness. The first of these carried up the impeachment to the House of Lords.

This impeachment was not absolutely lost sight of for some time. In January 1644, the Lords appointed a committee to consider what mode of proceeding for bringing the queen to trial was most agreeable to a parliamentary way, and to peruse precedents. Parl. Hist. 194.

[253] Parl. Hist. 129.

[254] Parl. Hist. 133, June 20; Clarendon, iv. 155. He published, however, a declaration soon after the taking of Bristol, containing full assurances of his determination to govern by the known laws. Parl. Hist. 144.

[255] Clarend. iv. 192, 262; Whitelock, 70. They met with a worse reception at Westminster than at Oxford, as indeed they had reason to expect. A motion that the Earl of Holland should be sent to the Tower was lost in the Commons by only one voice. Parl. Hist. 180. They were provoked at his taking his seat without permission. After long refusing to consent, the Lords agreed to an ordinance (June 29, 1644) that no peer or commoner who had been in the king's quarters, should be admitted again to sit in either house. Parl. Hist. 271. This severity was one cause of Essex's discontent, which was increased when the Commons refused him leave to take Holland with him on his expedition into the west that summer. Baillie, i. 426; Whitelock, 87. If it be asked why this Roman rigour was less impolitic in the parliament than in the king, I can only answer, that the stronger and the weaker have different measures to pursue. But relatively to the pacification of the kingdom, upon such terms as fellow-citizens ought to require from each other, it was equally blamable in both parties, or rather more so in that possessed of the greater power.

[256] It is intimated by Clarendon that some at Oxford, probably Jermyn and Digby, were jealous of Holland's recovering the influence he had possessed with the queen, who seems to have retained no resentment against him. As to Bedford and Clare, they would probably have been better received, if not accompanied by so obnoxious an intriguer of the old court. This seems to account for the unanimity which the historian describes to have been shown in the council against their favourable reception. Light and passionate tempers, like that of Henrietta, are prone to forget injuries; serious and melancholic ones, like that of Charles, never lose sight of them.

[257] Baillie deplores at this time "the horrible fears and confusions in the city, the king everywhere being victorious. In the city, a strong and insolent party for him."—P. 391. "The malignants stirred a multitude of women of the meaner and more infamous rank to come to the door of both houses, and cry tumultuously for peace on any terms. This tumult could not be suppressed but by violence, and killing some three or four women, and hurting some of them, and imprisoning many."—P. 300.

[258] Lords and Commons' Journals; Parl. Hist. 156, etc.; Clarendon, iv. 183; Hollis's Memoirs. Hollis was a teller for the majority on this occasion; he had left the war-like party some months (Baillie, i. 356); and his name is in the journals repeatedly, from November 1642, as teller against them, though he is charged with having said the year before, that he abhorred the name of accommodation. Hutchinson, p. 296. Though a very honest, and to a certain extent, an able man, he was too much carried away by personal animosities; and as these shifted, his principles shifted also.

[259] The resolution, that government by archbishops, bishops, etc., was inconvenient, and ought to be taken away, passed both houses unanimously September 10, 1642; Parl. Hist. ii. 1465. But the ordinance to carry this fully into effect was not made till October 1646. Scobell's Ordinances.

[260] Parl. Hist. iii. 15.

[261] This committee, appointed in February 1644, consisted of the following persons, the most conspicuous, at that time, of the parliament: the Earls of Northumberland, Essex, Warwick, and Manchester; Lords Say, Wharton, and Roberts; Mr. Pierrepont, the two Sir Henry Vanes, Sir Philip Stapylton, Sir William Waller, Sir Gilbert Gerrard, Sir William Armyn, Sir Arthur Haslerig; Messrs. Crew, Wallop, St. John, Cromwell, Brown, and Glynn. Parl. Hist. iii. 248.

[262] Somers Tracts, iv. 533. The names marked in the Parliamentary History as having taken the covenant, are 236.

The Earl of Lincoln alone, a man of great integrity and moderation, though only conspicuous in the Journals, refused to take the covenant, and was excluded in consequence from his seat in the house: but on his petition next year, though, as far as appears, without compliance, was restored, and the vote rescinded. Parl. Hist. 393. He regularly protested against all violent measures; and we still find his name in the minority on such occasions after the Restoration.

Baillie says, the desertion of about six peers at this time to the king, was of great use to the passing of the covenant in a legal way. Vol. i. p. 390.

[263] Burnet's Mem. of Duke of Hamilton, p. 239. I am not quite satisfied as to this, which later writers seem to have taken from Burnet. It may well be supposed that the ambiguity of the covenant was not very palpable; since the Scots presbyterians, a people not easily cozened, were content with its expression. According to fair and honest rules of interpretation, it certainly bound the subscribers to the establishment of a church-government conformed to that of Scotland; namely, the presbyterian, exclusive of all mixture with any other. But Selden, and the other friends of moderate episcopacy who took the covenant, justified it, I suppose, to their consciences, by the pretext that, in renouncing the jurisdiction of bishops, they meant the unlimited jurisdiction without concurrence of any presbyters. It was not, however, an action on which they could reflect with pleasure. Baxter says that Gataker, and some others of the assembly, would not subscribe the covenant, but on the understanding that they did not renounce primitive episcopacy by it. Life of Baxter, p. 48. These controversial subtleties elude the ordinary reader of history.

[264] After the war was ended, none of the king's party were admitted to compound for their estates, without taking the covenant. This Clarendon, in one of his letters, calls "making haste to buy damnation at two years' purchase." Vol. ii. p. 286.

[265] Neal, ii. 19, etc., is fair enough in censuring the committees, especially those in the country. "The greatest part [of the clergy] were cast out for malignity [attachment to the royal cause]; superstition and false doctrine were hardly ever objected; yet the proceedings of the sequestrators were not always justifiable; for, whereas a court of judicature should rather be counsel for the prisoner than the prosecutor, the commissioners considered the king's clergy as their most dangerous enemies, and were ready to lay hold of all opportunities to discharge them their pulpits."—P. 24. But if we can rely at all on White's Century of Malignant Ministers (and I do not perceive that Walker has been able to controvert it), there were a good many cases of irregular life in the clergy, so far at least as haunting alehouses; which, however, was much more common, and consequently less indecent, in that age than at present. See also Baxter's Life, p. 74; whose authority, though open to some exceptions on the score of prejudice, is at least better than Walker's.

The king's party were not less oppressive towards ministers whom they reckoned puritan; which unluckily comprehended most of those who were of strict lives, especially if they preached calvinistically, unless they redeemed that suspicion by strong demonstrations of loyalty. Neal, p. 21; Baxter's Life, p. 42. And, if they put themselves forward on this side, they were sure to suffer most severely for it on the parliament's success; an ordinance of April 1, 1643, having sequestered the private estates of all the clergy who had aided the king. Thus the condition of the English clergy was every way most deplorable; and in fact they were utterly ruined.

[266] Neal, p. 93. He says it was not tendered, by favour, to some of the clergy who had not been active against the parliament, and were reputed Calvinists. P. 59. Sanderson is said to be one instance. This historian, an honest and well-natured man at bottom, justly censures its imposition.

[267] "All the judges answered that they could deliver no opinion in this case, in point of treason by the law; because they could not deliver any opinion in point of treason, but what was particularly expressed to be treason in the statute of 25 E. III., and so referred it wholly to the judgment of this house." Lords' Journals, 17th December 1644.

[268] Lords' Journals, 4th January. It is not said to be done nem. con.

[269] "The difference in the temper of the common people of both sides was so great that they who inclined to the parliament left nothing unperformed that might advance the cause; whereas they who wished well to the king thought they had performed their duty in doing so, and that they had done enough for him, in that they had done nothing against him." Clarendon, pp. 3, 452. "Most of the gentry of the county (Nottinghamshire)," says Mrs. Hutchinson, "were disaffected to the parliament; most of the middle sort, the able substantial freeholders and the other commons, who had not their dependence upon the malignant nobility and gentry, adhered to the parliament."—P. 81. This I conceive to have been the case in much the greater part of England. Baxter, in his Life, p. 30, says just the same thing in a passage worthy of notice. But the Worcestershire populace, he says, were violent royalists, p. 39. Clarendon observes in another place (iii. 41), "There was in this county (Cornwall), as throughout the kingdom, a wonderful and superstitious reverence towards the name of a parliament, and a prejudice to the power of the court." He afterwards (p. 436) calls "an implicit reverence to the name of a parliament, the fatal disease of the whole kingdom." So prevalent was the sense of the king's arbitrary government, especially in the case of ship-money. Warburton remarks, that he never expressed any repentance, or made any confession in his public declarations, that his former administration had been illegal. Notes on Clarendon, p. 566. But this was not, perhaps, to be expected; and his repeated promises to govern according to law might be construed into tacit acknowledgments of past errors.

[270] The associated counties, properly speaking, were at first Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Hertford, Cambridge; to which some others were added. Sussex, I believe, was not a part of the association; but it was equally within the parliamentary pale, though the gentry were remarkably loyal in their inclinations. The same was true of Kent.

[271] Clarendon, passim; May, 160; Baillie, i. 416. See, in the Somers Tracts, v. 495, a dialogue between a gentleman and a citizen, printed at Oxford, 1643. Though of course a royalist pamphlet, it shows the disunion that prevailed in that unfortunate party, and inveighs against the influence of the papists, in consequence of which the Marquis of Hertford is said to have declined the king's service. Rupert is praised, and Newcastle struck at. It is written, on the whole, in rather a lukewarm style of loyalty. The Earl of Holland and Sir Edward Dering gave out as their reason for quitting the king's side, that there was great danger of popery. This was much exaggerated; yet Lord Sunderland talks the same language. Sidney Papers, ii. 667. Lord Falkland's dejection of spirits, and constant desire of peace, must chiefly be ascribed to his disgust with the councils of Oxford, and the greater part of those with whom he was associated.

We know too little of this excellent man, whose talents, however, and early pursuits do not seem to have particularly qualified him for public life. It is evident that he did not plunge into the loyal cause with all the zeal of his friend Hyde; and the king doubtless had no great regard for the counsels of one who took so very different a view of some important matters from himself. Life of Clarendon, 48. He had been active against Strafford, and probably had a bad opinion of Laud. The prosecution of Finch for high treason he had himself moved. In the Ormond Letters, i. 20, he seems to be struck at by one writing from Oxford, June 1, 1643: "God forbid that the best of men and kings be so used by some bad hollow-hearted counsellors, who affect too much the parliamentary way. Many spare not to name them; and I doubt not but you have heard their names."

[272] It appears by the late edition of Clarendon, iv. 351, that he was the adviser of calling the Oxford parliament. The former editors omitted his name.

[273] Parl. Hist. 218. The number who took the covenant in September 1643, appears by a list of the long parliament in the same work (vol. ii.) to be 236; but twelve of these are included in both lists, having gone afterwards into the king's quarters. The remainder, about 100, were either dead since the beginning of the troubles, or for some reason absented themselves from both assemblies. Possibly the list of those who took the covenant is not quite complete; nor do I think the king had much more than about sixty peers on his side. The parliament, however, could not have produced thirty. Lords' Journals, Jan. 22, 1644. Whitelock, p. 80, says that two hundred and eighty appeared in the House of Commons, Jan. 1644, besides one hundred absent in the parliament's service; but this cannot be quite exact.

[274] Rushworth Abr. v. 266, and 296; where is an address to the king, intimating, if attentively considered, a little apprehension of popery and arbitrary power. Baillie says, in one of his letters, "The first day the Oxford parliament met, the king made a long speech; but many being ready to give in papers for the removing of Digby, Cottington, and others from court, the meeting was adjourned for some days."—i. 429. Indeed, the restoration of Cottington, and still more of Windebank, to the king's councils, was no pledge of protestant or constitutional measures. This opposition, so natural to parliaments in any circumstances, disgusted Charles. In one of his letters to the queen, he congratulates himself on being "freed from the place of all mutinous motions, his mongrel parliament." It may be presumed that some of those who obeyed the king's summons to Oxford were influenced less by loyalty than a consideration that their estates lay in parts occupied by his troops; of course the same is applicable to the Westminster parliament.

[275] Baillie, 441. I can find no mention of this in the Journals; but, as Baillie was then in London, and in constant intercourse with the leaders of parliament, there must have been some foundation for his statement, though he seems to have been inaccurate as to the fact of the vote.

[276] Parl. Hist. 299, et post; Clarendon, v. 16; Whitelock, 110, etc.; Rushw. Abr. v. 449, etc.

[277] It was impossible for the king to avoid this treaty. Not only his Oxford parliament, as might naturally be expected, were openly desirous of peace, but a great part of the army had, in August 1644, while opposed to that of Essex in the west, taken the extraordinary step of sending a letter to that general, declaring their intentions for the rights and liberties of the people, privileges of parliament, and protestant religion against popish innovations; and that on the faith of subjects, the honour and reputation of gentlemen and soldiers, they would with their lives maintain that which his majesty should publicly promise in order to a bloodless peace; they went on to request that Essex, with six more, would meet the general (Earl of Brentford) with six more, to consider of all means possible to reconcile the unhappy differences and misunderstandings that have so long afflicted the kingdom. Sir Edward Walker's Historical Discourses, 59. The king was acquainted with this letter before it was sent, but after some hands had been subscribed to it. He consented, but evidently with great reluctance, and even indignation; as his own expressions testify in this passage of Walker, whose manuscript here, as in many other places, contains interlineations by Charles himself. It was doubtless rather in a mutinous spirit, which had spread widely through the army, and contributed to its utter ruin in the next campaign. I presume it was at the king's desire that the letter was signed by the general, as well as by Prince Maurice, and all the colonels, I believe, in his army, to take off the appearance of a faction; but it certainly originated with Wilmot, Percy, and some of those whom he thought ill affected. See Clarendon, iv. 527, et post; Rushw. Abr. v. 348, 358.

[278] The king's doctors, Steward and Sheldon, argued at Uxbridge that episcopacy was jure divino; Henderson and others that presbytery was so. Whitelock, 132. These churchmen should have been locked up like a jury, without food or fire, till they agreed.

If we may believe Clarendon, the Earl of Loudon offered in the name of the Scots, that if the king would give up episcopacy, they would not press any of the other demands. It is certain, however, that they would never have suffered him to become the master of the English parliament; and, if this offer was sincerely made, it must have been from a conviction that he could not become such.

[279] Rushworth, Whitelock, Clarendon. The latter tells in his life, which reveals several things not found in his history, that the king was very angry with some of his Uxbridge commissioners, especially Mr. Bridgman, for making too great concessions with respect to episcopacy. He lived, however, to make himself much greater.

[280] Whitelock, 133.

[281] The creed of this party is set forth in the Behemoth of Hobbes; which is, in other words, the application of those principles of government which are laid down in the Leviathan, to the constitution and state of England in the civil war. It is republished in Baron Maseres's Tracts, ii. 565, 567. Sir Philip Warwick, in his Memoirs, 198, hints something of the same kind.

[282] Warburton, in the notes subjoined to the late edition of Clarendon, vii. 563, mentions a conversation he had with the Duke of Argyle and Lord Cobham (both soldiers, and the first a distinguished one) as to the conduct of the king and the Earl of Essex after the battle of Edgehill. They agreed it was inexplicable on both sides by any military principle. Warburton explained it by the unwillingness to be too victorious, felt by Essex himself, and by those whom the king was forced to consult. Father Orleans, in a passage with which the bishop probably was acquainted, confirms this; and his authority is very good as to the secret of the court. Rupert, he says, proposed to march to London. "Mais l'esprit Anglois, qui ne se dement point même dans les plus attachés a la royauté, l'esprit Anglois, dis-je, toujours entêté de ces libertéz si funestes au repos de la nation, porta la plus grande partie du conseil à s'opposer à ce dessein. Le prétexte fut qu'il étoit dangereux pour le roy de l'entreprendre, et pour la ville que le Prince Robert l'exécutâst, jeune comme il étoit, emporté, et capable d'y mettre le feu. La vraie raison étoit qu'ils craignoient que, si le roy entroit dans Londres les armes à la main, il ne prétendist sur la nation une espèce de droit de conquête, qui le rendist trop absolu." Révolut. d'Angleterre, iii. 104.

[283] Rushworth Abr. iv. 550. At the very time that he was publicly denying his employment of papists, he wrote to Newcastle, commanding him to make use of all his subjects' services, without examining their consciences, except as to loyalty. Ellis's Letters, iii. 291, from an original in the Museum. No one can rationally blame Charles for anything in this, but his inveterate and useless habit of falsehood. See Clarendon, iii. 610.

It is probable that some foreign catholics were in the parliament's service. But Dodd says, with great appearance of truth, that no one English gentleman of that persuasion was in arms on their side. Church History of Engl. iii. 28. He reports as a matter of hearsay, that, out of about five hundred gentlemen who lost their lives for Charles in the civil war, one hundred and ninety-four were catholics. They were, doubtless, a very powerful faction in the court and army. Lord Spencer (afterwards Earl of Sunderland), in some remarkable letters to his wife from the king's quarters at Shrewsbury, in September 1642, speaks of the insolency of the papists with great dissatisfaction. Sidney Papers, ii. 667.

[284] It cannot be doubted, and is admitted in a remarkable conversation of Hollis and Whitelock with the king at Oxford in November 1644, that the exorbitant terms demanded at Uxbridge were carried by the violent party, who disliked all pacification. Whitelock, 113.

[285] Baillie, ii. 91. He adds, "That which has been the great snare to the king is the unhappy success of Montrose in Scotland." There seems indeed great reason to think that Charles, always sanguine, and incapable of calculating probabilities, was unreasonably elated by victories from which no permanent advantage ought to have been expected. Burnet confirms this on good authority. Introduction to Hist. of his Times, 51.

[286] Whitelock, 109, 137, 142; Rushw. Abr. v. 163. The first rat (except indeed the Earls of Holland and Bedford, who were rats with two tails) was Sir Edward Dering, who came into the parliament's quarters, Feb. 1644. He was a weak man of some learning, who had already played a very changeable part before the war.

[287] A flagrant instance of this was the plunder of Bristol by Rupert, in breach of the capitulation. I suspect that it was the policy of one party to exaggerate the cruelties of the other; but the short narratives dispersed at the time give a wretched picture of slaughter and devastation.

[288] Clarendon and Whitelock passim; Baxter's Life, pp. 44, 55. This license of Maurice's and Goring's armies in the west first led to the defensive insurrection, if so it should be called, of the club-men; that is, of yeomen and country people, armed only with clubs, who hoped, by numbers and concert, to resist effectually the military marauders of both parties, declaring themselves neither for king nor parliament, but for their own liberty and property. They were of course regarded with dislike on both sides; by the king's party when they first appeared in 1644, because they crippled the royal army's operations, and still more openly by the parliament next year, when they opposed Fairfax's endeavour to carry on the war in the counties bordering on the Severn. They appeared at times in great strength; but the want of arms and discipline made it not very difficult to suppress them. Clarendon, v. 197; Whitelock, 137; Parl. Hist. 379, 390.

The king himself, whose disposition was very harsh and severe, except towards the few he took into his bosom, can hardly be exonerated from a responsibility for some acts of inhumanity (see Whitelock, 67, and Somers Tracts, iv. 502, v. 369; Maseres's Tracts, i. 144, for the ill-treatment of prisoners); and he might probably have checked the outrages which took place at the storming of Leicester, where he was himself present. Certainly no imputation of this nature can be laid at the door of the parliamentary commanders; though some of them were guilty of the atrocity of putting their Irish prisoners to death, in obedience, however, to an ordinance of parliament. Parl. Hist. iii. 295; Rushworth's Abridgement, v. 402. It passed October 24, 1644, and all remissness in executing it was to be reckoned a favouring of the Irish rebellion. When we read, as we do perpetually, these violent and barbarous proceedings of the parliament, is it consistent with honesty or humanity to hold up that assembly to admiration, while the faults on the king's side are studiously aggravated? The partiality of Oldmixon, Harris, Macauley, and now of Mr. Brodie and Mr. Godwin, is full as glaring, to say the very least, as that of Hume.

[289] Clarendon and Baxter.

[290] The excise was first imposed by an ordinance of both houses in July 1643 (Husband's Collection of Ordinances, p. 267), and afterwards by the king's convention at Oxford. See a view of the financial expedients adopted by both parties in Lingard, x. 243. The plate brought in to the parliament's commissioners at Guildhall, in 1642, for which they allowed the value of the silver, and one shilling per ounce more, is stated by Neal at £1,267,326, an extraordinary proof of the wealth of London; yet I do not know his authority, though it is probably good. The university of Oxford gave all they had to the king; but could not of course vie with the citizens.

The sums raised within the parliament's quarters from the beginning of the war to 1647 are reckoned in a pamphlet of that year, quoted in Sinclair's Hist. of the Revenue, i. 283, at £17,512,400. But, on reference to the tract itself, I find this written at random. The contributions, however, were really very great; and, if we add those to the king, and the loss by waste and plunder, we may form some judgment of the effects of the civil war.

[291] The independents raised loud clamours against the Scots army; and the northern counties naturally complained of the burthen of supporting them as well as of their excesses. Many passages in Whitelock's journal during 1645 and 1646 relate to this. Hollis endeavours to deny or extenuate the charges; but he is too prejudiced a writer, and Baillie himself acknowledges a great deal. Vol. ii. pp. 138, 142, 146.

[292] The chief imputation against Manchester was for not following up his victory in the second battle of Newbury, with which Cromwell openly taxed him; see Ludlow, i. 133. There certainly appears to have been a want of military energy on this occasion; but it is said by Baillie (ii. 76) that all the general officers, Cromwell not excepted, concurred in Manchester's determination. Essex had been suspected from the time of the affair at Brentford, or rather from the battle of Edgehill (Baillie and Ludlow); and his whole conduct, except in the celebrated march to relieve Gloucester, confirmed a reasonable distrust either of his military talents, or of his zeal in the cause. "He loved monarchy and nobility," says Whitelock, p. 108, "and dreaded those who had a design to destroy both." Yet Essex was too much a man of honour to enter on any private intrigues with the king. The other peers employed under the parliament, Stamford, Denbigh, Willoughby, were not successful enough to redeem the suspicions that fell upon their zeal.

All our republican writers, such as Ludlow and Mrs. Hutchinson in that age, Mrs. Macauley and Mr. Brodie more of late, speak acrimoniously of Essex. "Most will be of opinion," says Mr. B. (History of British Empire, iii. 565), "that as ten thousand pounds a year out of the sequestered lands were settled upon him for his services, he was rewarded infinitely beyond his merits." The reward was doubtless magnificent; but the merit of Essex was this, that he made himself the most prominent object of vengeance in case of failure, by taking the command of an army to oppose the king in person at Edgehill: a command of which no other man in his rank was capable, and which could not, at that time, have been intrusted to any man of inferior rank without dissolving the whole confederacy of the parliament.

It is to be observed, moreover, that the two battles of Newbury, like that of Edgehill, were by no means decisive victories on the side of the parliament; and that it is not clear whether either Essex or Manchester could have pushed the king much more than they did. Even after Naseby, his party made a pretty long resistance, and he was as much blamed as they for not pressing his advantages with vigour.

[293] It had been voted by the Lords a year before, Dec. 12, 1643, "That the opinion and resolution of this house is from henceforth not to admit the members of either house of parliament into any place or office, excepting such places of great trust as are to be executed by persons of eminency and known integrity, and are necessary for the government and safety of the kingdom." But a motion to make this resolution into an ordinance was carried in the negative. Lords' Journals; Parl. Hist. 187. The first motion had been for a resolution without this exception, that no place of profit should be executed by the members of either house.

[294] Whitelock, pp. 118, 120. It was opposed by him, but supported by Pierrepont, who carried it up to the Lords. The Lords were chiefly of the presbyterian party; though Say, Wharton, and a few more, were connected with the independents. They added a proviso to the ordinance raising forces to be commanded by Fairfax, that no officer refusing the covenant should be capable of serving, which was thrown out in the lower house. But another proviso was carried in the Commons by 82 to 63, that the officers, though appointed by the general, should be approved by both houses of parliament. Cromwell was one of the tellers for the minority. Commons' Journals, Feb. 7 and 13, 1645.

In the original ordinance the members of both houses were excluded during the war; but in the second, which was carried, the measure was not made prospective. This, which most historians have overlooked, is well pointed out by Mr. Godwin. By virtue of this alteration, many officers were elected in the course of 1645 and 1646; and the effect, whatever might be designed, was very advantageous to the republican and independent factions.

[295] Whitelock, p. 145.

[296] Whether there are sufficient grounds for concluding that Henrietta's connection with Jermyn was criminal, I will not pretend to decide; though Warburton has settled the matter in a very summary style. See one of his notes on Clarendon, vol. vii. p. 636. But I doubt whether the bishop had authority for what he there says, though it is likely enough to be true. See also a note of Lord Dartmouth on Burnet, i. 63.

[297] Clarendon speaks often in his History, and still more frequently in his private letters, with great resentment of the conduct of France, and sometimes of Holland, during our civil wars. I must confess that I see nothing to warrant this. The States-General, against whom Charles had so shamefully been plotting, interfered as much for the purpose of mediation as they could with the slightest prospect of success, and so as to give offence to the parliament (Rushworth Abridged, v. 567; Baillie, ii. 78; Whitelock, 141, 148; Harris's Life of Cromwell, 246); and as to France, though Richelieu had instigated the Scots malcontents, and possibly those of England, yet after his death, in 1642, no sort of suspicion ought to lie on the French government; the whole conduct of Anne of Austria having been friendly, and both the mission of Harcourt in 1643, and the present negotiations of Montreuil and Bellievre, perfectly well intended. That Mazarin made promises of assistance which he had no design, nor perhaps any power, to fulfil, is true; but this is the common trick of such statesmen, and argues no malevolent purpose. But Hyde, out of his just dislike of the queen, hated all French connections; and his passionate loyalty made him think it a crime, or at least a piece of base pusillanimity, in foreign states, to keep on any terms with the rebellious parliament. The case was altered, after the retirement of the regent Anne from power: Mazarin's latter conduct was, as is well known, exceedingly adverse to the royal cause.

The account given by Mr. D'Israeli of Tabran's negotiations in the fifth volume of his Commentaries on the Reign of Charles I., though it does not contain anything very important, tends to show Mazarin's inclination towards the royal cause in 1644 and 1645.

[298] Colepepper writes to Ashburnham, in February 1646, to advance the Scots' treaty with all his power. "It is the only way left to save the Crown and the kingdom; all other tricks will deceive you.... It is no time to dally on distinctions and criticisms. All the world will laugh at them when a crown is in question." Clar. Papers, ii. 207.

The king had positively declared his resolution not to consent to the establishment of presbytery. This had so much disgusted both the Scots and English presbyterians (for the latter had been concerned in the negotiation), that Montreuil wrote to say he thought they would rather make it up with the independents than treat again. "De sorte qu'il ne faut plus marchander, et que V. M. se doit hâter d'envoyer aux deux parlemens son consentiment aux trois propositions d'Uxbridge; ce qu'étant fait, elle sera en sureté dans l'armée d'Ecosse" (15th Jan. 1646) P. 211.

[299] "I assure you," he writes to Capel, Hopton, etc., Feb. 2, 1646, "whatever paraphrases or prophecies may be made upon my last message (pressing the two houses to consent to a personal treaty), I shall never part with the church, the essentials of my crown, or my friends."—P. 206. Baillie could not believe the report that the king intended to take refuge in the Scots army, as "there would be no shelter there for him, unless he would take the covenant, and follow the advice of his parliament. Hard pills to be swallowed by a wilful and an unadvised prince." Vol. ii. p. 203.

[300] Not long after the king had taken shelter with the Scots, he wrote a letter to Ormond, which was intercepted, wherein he assured him of his expectation that their army would join with his, and act in conjunction with Montrose, to procure a happy peace and the restoration of his rights. Whitelock, page 208. Charles had bad luck with his letters, which fell, too frequently for his fame and interests, into the hands of his enemies. But who, save this most ill-judging of princes, would have entertained an idea that the Scots presbyterian army would co-operate with Montrose, whom they abhorred, and very justly, for his treachery and cruelty, above all men living?

[301] Parl. Hist. 499; Whitelock, 215, 218. It was voted, 17th June, that after these twenty years, the king was to exercise no power over the militia without the previous consent of parliament, who were to pass a bill at any time respecting it, if they should judge the kingdom's safety to be concerned, which should be valid without the king's assent. Commons' Journals.

[302] P. 248. "Show me any precedent," he says in another place, "wherever presbyterian government and regal was together without perpetual rebellions, which was the cause that necessitated the king my father to change that government in Scotland. And even in France, where they are but on tolerance, which in likelihood shall cause moderation, did they ever sit still so long as they had power to rebel? And it cannot be otherwise; for the ground of their doctrine is anti-monarchical."—P. 260. See also p. 273.

[303] "The design is to unite you with the Scots nation and the presbyterians of England against the anti-monarchical party, the independents.... If by conscience it is intended to assert that episcopacy is jure divino exclusive, whereby no protestant, or rather Christian church, can be acknowledged for such without a bishop, we must therein crave leave wholly to differ. And if we be in an error, we are in good company, there not being, as we have cause to believe, six persons of the protestant religion of the other opinion.... Come, the question in short is, whether you will choose to be a king of presbytery, or no king, and yet presbytery or perfect independency to be?"—P. 263. They were, however, as much against his giving up the militia, or his party, as in favour of his abolishing episcopacy.

Charles was much to be pitied throughout all this period; none of his correspondents understood the state of affairs so well as himself; he was with the Scots, and saw what they were made of, while the others fancied absurdities through their own private self-interested views. It is very certain that by sacrificing episcopacy he would not have gained a step with the parliament; and as to reigning in Scotland alone, suspected, insulted, degraded, this would perhaps just have been possible for himself; but neither Henrietta nor her friends would have found an asylum there.

[304] Juxon had been well treated by the parliament, in consequence of his prudent abstinence from politics, and residence in their quarters. He dates his answer to the king from his palace at Fulham. He was, however, dispossessed of it not long after by virtue of the ordinance directing the sale of bishops' lands. Nov. 16, 1646. Parl. Hist. 528. A committee was appointed (Nov. 2, 1646) to consider of a fitting maintenance to be allowed the bishops, both those who had remained under the parliament, and those who had deserted it. Journals. I was led to this passage by Mr. Godwin, Hist. of Commonwealth, ii. 250. Whether anything farther was done, I have not observed. But there is an order in the Journals, 1st May 1647, that whereas divers of the late tenants of Dr. Juxon, late Bishop of London, have refused to pay the rents or other sums of money due to him as Bishop of London at or before the 1st of November last, the trustees of bishops' lands are directed to receive the same, and pay them over to Dr. Juxon. Though this was only justice, it shows that justice was done at least in this instance, to a bishop. Juxon must have been a very prudent and judicious man, though not learned; which probably was all the better.

[305] Jan. 29, 1646. Parl. Hist. 436. Whitelock says, "Many sober men and lovers of peace were earnest to have complied with what the king proposed; but the major part of the house was contrary, and the new-elected members joined those who were averse to compliance."—P. 207.