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perceived his error, and employed every art to win over the common people to their cause.

Religion was their watch-word, and that sacred name, which should never be used but to breathe accents of humility and peace, was most artfully employed to render the breach between Charles and his subjects irremediable. In all parts of the country the royal clergy were displaced, and the pulpits filled with factious and seditious demagogues; and the war against the King preached for and prayed for as a holy crusade in behalf of the majesty of heaven.

The signal for open hostilities was the erection of the royal standard at Nottingham on the 25th of August 1642, when the King issued a proclamation, commanding all persons who were able to bear arms, to repair to the royal standard, which he had set up, in

under the name of Yeomanry, seem to have been passed over by Charles and his advisers as of little consequence, and perhaps this was the real ground of the grand error they were in, of supposing they had all or most of the strength of the nation with them, because they had most of the nobility and richer gentry; whereas it was found, when a general movement took place, that the great bulk of the people was against them, and, like an overwhelming tide, bore down all before it."-" It is true," adds he," that the mass of the people, having little time for contemplation, are content to let those to whom affluence gives leisure think for them; but when they do think for themselves, and strongly adopt a sentiment, he is a bold man, and ought to have astonishing resourses, who contravenes it. That will be generally, if not always, found the wiser government, which informs itself well as to the real bent of the public mind; and, if it is misled by a faction, takes the way of candour and frankness to dispel the mist of error or prejudice, but avoids to do violence to the general opinion."

conformity with the ancient practice of the English kings, when, upon extraordinary occasions, they needed the assistance of their people. But the King's proclamation produced so little effect, that when the royal standard was unfurled, not a soul appeared, but a few trained bands assembled for the occasion. Every countenance was overspread with melancholy and dejection; and the standard being blown down by a storm, this accident was interpreted into an unlucky omen. Indeed nothing could be more melancholy than the prospect of this unhappy monarch, destitute of troops, arms, artillery, and ammunition, except a very inconsiderable supply, altogether inadequate to his necessities, surrounded by timorous friends, distracted by jarring councils, wanting even the necessaries of life, and threatened by a powerful faction, which had not only despoiled him of his revenue and authority, but also interested the majority and richer part of the nation in its rebellious designs.

In this emergency, the King, by the advice of his council, sent the Earls of Southampton and Dorset, Sir John Coleper and Sir William Udall, with a message to the two Houses, proposing a treaty for an accommodation, declaring his firm resolution to maintain the true religion, and the privileges of his people; protesting that he earnestly desired peace, and that, should his proposal be rejected, God would not impute to him the blood that might be shed in the course of their dispute. The deputies were treated with great insolence and contempt by both Houses; and their answer imported, that, without derogating from the privileges of Parliament, they could not treat with the King, until they should have revoked those proclamations by which they were declared guilty of high treason. In a subsequent message, he promised to revoke those procla mations, and take down his standard, as soon as they should fix a day for recalling their declarations, by which all his friends and adherents were treated as traitors to their country. They insisted on their for mer answer, assuring him, that if he would return to

his Parliament, after the revocation which they had proposed, he should receive sensible marks of their fidelity and obedience; but that the Parliament, as representative of the kingdom, would never suffer itself to be put in competition with his majesty's pernicious counsellors. Then they published a declaration, protesting that they would never lay down their arms, until the King should have abandoned the delinquents to the justice of Parliament. Charles sent a third message, in which he said the public should judge whether he or they had manifested the warmer solicitude for peace; that should they in the sequel be desirous to treat, he would always remember, that the blood to be shed was that of his subjects; and that he would return to his Parliament as soon as the causes of his absence should cease. To this they returned a very acrimonious answer, charging his soldiers with having committed the most violent outrages, and himself with having not only caressed the agents of the Irish rebels, but also with having seized the ammunition, clothing, and horses, provided for the reduction of those rebels, in order to be employed against his own Parliament. Charles, in a subsequent declaration, absolutely denied the truth of those imputations; observing, by way of recrimination, that the two Houses had made no scruple of using against their sovereign one hundred thousand pounds, raised for the relief of Ireland; that though the House of Commons was composed of above five hundred members, two hundred had been obliged to relinquish their seats by the violence and threats of the majority; and that of one hundred peers, not above sixteen continued to sit in the upper House of Parliament.

It is not the intention of this preliminary discourse to enter at large upon the events of the civil war; and therefore we shall pass over the narratives of different sieges and battles, to notice other events of a different description, but more characteristic of the times. Among the other causes of jealousy against the King, with which the Parliament professed to be very sus

picious, was a secret attachment to the church of Rome, which they never failed, in their public declarations, to impute to his majesty, and against which their preachers inveighed most bitterly in their pulpits. Charles took a solemn occasion to rid himself of this accusation. Being at Oxford, and about to receive the sacrament from the hands of the Lord Archbishop of Armagh, he rose up from his knees, and beckoning to the archbishop for a short forbearance, made the following protestation: "My Lords, I espy here many resolved Protestants, who may declare it to the world the resolution I do now make. I have to the utmost of my power prepared my soul to become a worthy receiver; and may I so receive comfort by the blessed sacrament, as I do intend the establishment of the true reformed Protestant religion, as it stood in the happy days of Elizabeth, without any connivance at Popery. I bless God that, in the midst of these public distractions, I have still liberty to communicate; and may this sacrament be my damnation, if my heart do not join with my lips in this protestation."

An asseveration so strong as this, and made too on such a solemn occasion, should, we think, have satisfied the Parliament of the King's sincerity in his religious opinions; but far from abating any of that jealousy which they pretended to entertain of his secret attachment to the Romish faith, they even seem to have resented this personal declaration of the King's religious sentiments as a direct insult upon themselves, and not to appear behindhand with the King, they soon after promulgated their Solemn League and Covenant. By this celebrated instrument, which ran jointly in the names of the people of England, Scotland, and Ireland, the Parliament, which were then sitting at Westminster, with the Scotch commissioners, and the Assembly of Divines, bound to preserve the reformed religion in the three kingdoms; to promote an uniformity in doctrine and discipline; to extirpate popery and prelacy; to maintain the privileges of Parliament, and the liberties of the people; to defend his Majesty's person and an

thority, in the preservation and defence of the true religion, and the liberties of the kingdom; to discover incendiaries and malignants, that they might receive condign punishment; to promote a firm peace and union to all posterity; to assist one another with all their power; renounce neutrality, and resist temptations; to humble themselves for their sins, amend their lives, and vie with each other in the great work of reformation. This covenant was read in St. Margaret's church at Westminster, in presence of both Houses; and the Commons ordered that it should be taken next Sunday by all persons in their respective parishes. Smollet says, "the Scots, on this occasion, were partly influenced by temporal interest, and partly by fanaticism. They began to fear that, should the King triumph over the two Houses, he would retract all the concessions which had been extorted from him by the Scottish nation. They were inflamed with the hope of establishing their darling presbytery in England, and even extending it to the remotest regions, and some of them were allured with the prospect of sharing the spoils of the Royalists*."

* Whatever the Scotch designed by the league and covenant, it is certain that but few of the English patriots entered heartily into it. At the time when it was proposed, their affairs were in a critical posture, and it demanded the utmost circumspection on their part to keep their Scottish auxiliaries faithful to their cause. The Editor of Colonel Hutchinson's Memoirs says, that when the various sects had almost crushed the Episcopalians, the Presbyterian ministers began to rise preeminent in power, and to show, that though they had changed the name, they had by no means intended to diminish the dominion of the hierarchy. There are preserved in Whitelock two speeches, one of his own, and one of Selden's, on this subject. To resist this usurpation there arose a very powerful party, or faction, under the name of Independents, under whose banner

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