Hyde, the great penman of the royalist party. "And," adds Clarendon himself, "it was happy that he did stay; for there was an occasion then fell out in which his presence was very useful towards disposing the Lord-keeper Littleton to send the great seal to the king at York." It appears that Charles wanted the great seal, but not the lord-keeper; for Littleton had made himself very obnoxious to the court by swimming with the strong stream of parliament. Besides other offences, he had recently voted in favour of the Militia ordinance, and had learnedly insisted both on the expediency and on the legality of that measure. Clarendon, however, says that he had always been convinced of Littleton's loyalty, and he describes him as an honourable and noble person, who was only acting a double part. "Especially his majesty was assured by some whom he trusted that the affection of the Lord Littleton was very entire to his service, and his compliance only artificial to preserve himself in a capacity of serving him, which was true." The copious and magniloquent historian goes on to say that while Littleton was playing this part, he called upon him one evening, and spoke very freely with him. He told Littleton of the censure and hazard he incurred by his notable compliance and correspondence with "that party" which the king construed to be factious against his just regal power, and that some votes in which his lordship had concurred, and which were generally understood to be contrary to law, in which his lordship's knowledge was unquestionable, were very notorious and much spoken of. The lordkeeper then told Hyde the straits he was in"that the governing lords had a terrible apprehension of the king's ser.ding for the great seal; and that nothing but his fair deportment towards them, and seeming to be of their mind, prevented their taking the seal into their own custody, allowing it only to be with him whilst he sat in the house and in the court; that they had made some order to that purpose, if, by his interest with them, he had not prevented it, well knowing that it would prove most fatal to the king, who, he foresaw, must be shortly compelled to wish the great seal with him for many reasons. "Now," said he, "let it be considered whether my voting with them in such particulars, which my not voting with them cannot prevent, be of equal prejudice to the king with the seal's being put into such a condition that the king shall never be able to get it when it is most necessary for him, which undoubtedly will be the case when, by my carriage and opposition against them, the confidence towards me shall be lessened." The end of this long conversation was, that Littleton promised to serve the king "in that article of moment," and even to go to him at York. Hyde between York and London, when gentlemen undertook the service, as enough were willing to do; insomuch as when they delivered the seal to his majesty. This is Clarenspatched a letter on Saturday night, at that time of the year, about twelve at night, they always received the king's answer, Monday, by ten of the clock in the morning."-Clarendon, Life. 2 Hist.; Oxford edition of 1826. and his compeers communicated the happy intelligence to their master, who thereupon despatched Mr. Eliot, a forward young man and a groom of the bedchamber, with a warrant to receive the great seal and a very kind letter to the lordkeeper, requiring him to make all possible haste to York. Littleton gave up the great symbol to Eliot, who posted back to York with it; and then Littleton posted after the seal, and, though he was indisposed, and a much less active traveller than the groom of the chambers, he arrived at York the next day after that gentleman had de 1 Life. 3 Clarendon says, that he particularly mentioned to Littleton his late vote upon the militia. 4 The seal measures six inches in diameter. But it was now time for Clarendon himself to steal away to York. Shortly after Littleton's departure, the king told him that he would find don's account, or rather, we should say, one of | chamber carried off the seal, and that the lordClarendon's accounts; and, according to this nar-keeper stole out of London, and by by-roads got rative, he contributed mainly to the great event, to York, where he was regarded but coldly by by his ingenious conversation with the lord- his majesty. Clarendon says that the king was keeper. But Eliot, the active groom of the cham- not satisfied with Littleton;' that his majesty ber, told the king a very different story, affirm- would not for a long time re-deliver the seal to ing that he had found the lord-keeper altogether him, but always kept it in his own bedchamber, averse to the measure; that he had locked the and that men remarked "a visible dejectedness" door upon him, and had got the great seal from in the lord-keeper. The historian tells us that him only by threatening to blow out his brains. all this gave him much trouble, as well it might, The historian says that Mr. Eliot did this, and if his own story were the true one; and he takes told many stories to magnify his own service, to himself the credit of procuring better treatnot imagining that the lord-keeper intended to ment for the keeper. It is certain, however, that follow him to York. But may we not, on the Charles never placed any confidence in Littleton; other side, suspect that Clarendon magnified his and that adroit lawyer met with the usual fate of service in this particular, as he obviously does double-dealers, was despised by both parties, lost in many other cases? May, an excellent autho- all spirit and talent for business, and concluded rity, says, that the lord-keeper had continued in his career about two years after at Oxford, in all appearance firm to the parliament for some neglect, poverty, and mental wretchedness. space of time after the rest were gone to York; "insomuch that there seemed no doubt at all made of his constancy, till, at the last, before the end of the month of June, a young gentle-him much to do there, and "that he thought now man, one Master Thomas Eliot, groom of the privy chamber to the king, was sent closely from York to him; who, being admitted by the lordkeeper into his private chamber when none else were by, so handled the matter, whether by persuasions, threats, or promises, or whatsoever, that, after three hours' time, he got the great seal into his hands, and rid post with it away to the king at York. The Lord-keeper Littleton, after serious consideration with himself what he had done, or rather suffered, and not being able to answer it to the parliament, the next day early in the morning rode after it himself, and went to the king. Great was the complaint at London against him for that action; nor did the king ever show him any great regard afterwards. The reason which the Lordkeeper Littleton gave for parting so with the great seal to some friends of his who went after him to York was this:-that the king, when he made him lord-keeper, gave him an oath in private, which he took, that, whensoever the king should send to him for the great seal, he should forthwith deliver it. This oath (as he averred to his friends) his conscience would by no means suffer him to dispense withal; he only repented (though now too late) that he accepted the office upon those terms." Whitelock says simply "The Lord-keeper Littleton, after his great adherence to the parliament, delivered the great seal to Mr. Eliot, whom the king sent to him for it; and shortly after Littleton followed the seal to the king, but was not much respected by him or the courtiers." And all that is perfectly clear in this strange manœuvre, which like most of Charles's measures, and all other manoeuvres, is liable to a contrariety of doubts, is, that a groom of the there would be less reason every day for his being Hist; edition of 1826. he had then come from London. But it was thus that Charles dealt even with the instruments of his plans and intrigues, concealing from the rest what was done by one, and never imparting to the whole body the schemes in which all were to work blindly, or at least seeing nothing beyond to the parliament. The commons instantly took their resolution, and on the 15th of June sent Denzil Hollis up to the House of Lords to impeach the whole of them. In an eloquent speech Hollis dwelt upon the history of the earlier parts of this reign; showed that it had ever been the DITCHLEY HOUSE.-From a drawing by Luke Sullivan, 1759. their own fixed path. After this public reception and masking of circumstances, the king called Hyde aside into the garden, saying that they need not now be afraid of being seen together; and he walked with him in consultation for a full hour.' Clarendon arrived in Yorkshire at the end of May; on the 2d of June the ship Providence, freighted by the queen in Holland, escaped the Earl of Warwick's cruisers, and ran ashore on the Yorkshire coast with sixteen pieces of artillery and great store of arms and ammunition, which had long been expected by the royal party, and the want of which had delayed the king's design of attempting Hull by a siege. The cannon, muskets, and gunpowder were all safely landed and carried to York. At this crisis the arrival of such a supply was of more consequence in the eyes of Charles than the coming of a great penman. The parliament, however, by this time began to be excited and convulsed by the great defection that was taking place, particularly among the lords. On the 30th of May they, by an order, summoned nine peers, the first that had gone away to York, to appear at Westminster. These nine peers utterly refused to quit the king, returning a slighting and scornful answer Life. It seems quite certain that Clarendon's evasion was not considered so very important a matter by the parliament. Neither Whitelock nor May thought it of weight sufficient to merit any particular notice. policy of the court "to strike at parliaments, keep off parliaments, break parliaments, or divide parliaments." "A new plot," said Hollis, "is this: the members are drawn away, and persuaded to forsake their duty, and go down to York, thereby to blemish the actions of both houses, as done by a few and inconsiderable number, a party rather than a parliament, and perhaps to raise and set up an anti-parliament there. My lords, this is now the great design against this parliament, which is the only means to continue us to be a nation of freemen, and not of slaves, to be owners of anything: in a word, which must stand in the gap to prevent an inlet and inundation of all misery and confusion." He then, in the name of all the commons of England, impeached of high crimes and misdemeanours, Spenser, Earl of Northampton, William, Earl of Devonshire, Henry, Earl of Dover, Henry, Earl of Monmouth, Charles, Lord Howard of Charleton, Robert, Lord Rich, Charles, Lord Grey of Ruthven, Thomas, Lord Coventry, and Arthur, Lord Capel. The lords that remained made little or no attempt to screen the lords that had fled; and, shortly after, "being in their robes," they adjudged the fugitives never to sit more as members of that house, to be incapable of any benefit or privileges of parliament, and to suffer imprisonment during their pleasure. On June 2d the lords and commons sent a petition to the king with nineteen propositions, as the basis of a treaty of concord and lasting peace. They demanded that the king should dismiss all such great officers and ministers of state as were not approved of by both Houses of Parliament, and that an oath should be taken by all future members of the privy council; that the great affairs of the kingdom should not be transacted by the advice of private men or by any unknown or unsworn counsellors; that he or they unto whom the government and education of the king's children were committed should be approved of by both houses; that the church government and Liturgy should undergo such a reformation as both Houses of Parliament should advise; that tody of such persons as his majesty should appoint, with the approbation of parliament; that the extraordinary guards and military forces now attending his majesty should be removed and discharged, and that for the future he should raise no such guards or extraordinary forces, but, according to the law, in case of actual rebellion or invasion, &c., &c.2 his majesty should contribute his best assistance | dom should be put under the command and cusfor the raising of a sufficient maintenance for preaching ministers throughout the kingdom, and give his consent to laws for the taking away of innovations, superstitions, and pluralities; that he should rest satisfied with the course that the lords and commons had taken for ordering of the militia until the same should be further settled by a bill; that such members of either House of Parliament as had, during this present parliament, been put out of any place and office, might either be restored to that place and office, or otherwise have satisfaction for the same upon the petition of that house of which they were members; that all privy counsellors and judges should take an oath for the maintaining of the Petition of Right, and of other wholesome statutes made by this present parliament; that all the judges, and all the officers appointed by approbation of parliament, should hold their places during good behaviour; that the justice of parliament should be left to take its course with all delinquents, and that all persons cited by either house should appear and abide the censure of parliament; that the forts and castles of the king Charles, with lords about him, with arms and gunpowder, and with the prospect of more from Holland, thought himself as strong as the parliament: he received these propositions with great indignation, and, in replying to them, he taxed the parliament as cabalists and traitors, as the makers of new laws and new constitutional doctrines; and in the end he told them that their demands were unworthy of his royal descent from so many famous ancestors, unworthy of the trust reposed in him by the laws; protesting that, if he were both vanquished and a prisoner, in worse condition than the most unfortunate of his predecessors had ever been reduced to, he would never stoop to grant those demands, and make himself, from a King of England, a Doge of Venice. CHAPTER XIV.-CIVIL AND MILITARY HISTORY.-A.D. 1642-1644. CHARLES I. The season of war commences-Charles levies forces-The parliament follows the example—The fleet joins the parliament―The parliamentary military commanders-Hampden and his regiment-Progress of the musters on either side-Preliminary skirmishes-Hostile manifestoes--Dr. Bastwick taken prisoner-His narrow escape from execution-Plots of the royalists to surprise Hull-They are unsuccessful-Charles erects his standard-His unsuccessful attempt on Coventry-Fruitless overtures for negotiation-Prince Rupert's early proceedings in the royalist cause-Proclamations of Charles-Their insincere character-His mode of raising supplies-Encounters of the rival parties-Battle of Edgehill-Particular movements of the conflict-Its indecisive termination-Charles welcomed in Oxford-Overtures for an accommodation between the king and parliament-It is broken by the royalists-Military blunders of the parliament army-The queen arrives with reinforcements to the royalists-Waller's conspiracy-Plot detected to deliver Bristol to the royalists-Prince Rupert's attempt at a night surprise-His encounter with the parliament troops at Chalgrove Field-Death of Hampden-Misfortunes to the parliamentary cause-Skirmishes-London fortified against the king-Battle of Newbury-Death of Lord Falkland-The parliament applies to the Scots for aid-Conditions on which they grant it-Charles in like manner applies to Ireland-The Earls of Montrose and Antrim consent to aid the king-The Irish assistance to the royalist cause ineffectual-Death of Pym-Meeting of the Westminster Assembly of Divines-Their proceedings to settle the government and form of worship of the Church of England-A royalist parliament convened at Oxford-Its speedy dissolution-Leslie and the Scots come to the aid of the parliamentarians-Battle of Marston Moor-Total defeat of the royalists. ND now "the fatal time was come when those long and tedious paperconflicts of declarations, petitions, and proclamations were turned into actual and bloody wars, and the pens seconded by drawn swords." Charles sent out commissions of array, begin 1 May. ning with Leicestershire, and enjoined or invited all men to bring him money, horses, and arms, 2 In their seventeenth proposition, the parliament alluded to the old and now almost forgotten subject of the Palatinate; tell ing the king that his subjects would be much encouraged by these close Protestant alliances, and enabled in a parliamentary way to give him aid and assistance in restoring his royal sister and her princely issue to those dignities and dominions which belonged to them. on security of his forests and parks for the prin- | cent. interest; and they appointed four treacipal and eight per cent. interest. He forbade all levies without his consent, and called upon his subjects to be mindful of their oath of allegiance, and faithful to his royal person. It was now found that he had a strong party in the country: the church, the universities, the majority of the nobles, and perhaps of the country gentleman—the loyalty of the latter class being generally great in proportion to their distance from the court and their ignorance of court life-rallied round him.' The austerity of the Puritans' manners, and their severe doctrine, drove most of the gay and dissolute, and many who were gay without being dissolute, into his party, which was further strengthened by many good, virtuous, and moderate men, who disliked his former conduct, who dreaded his tyrannical disposition, but dreaded the untried democratic violence still more. Nor was Charles wanting in solemn protestations and assurances. To the lords who had gathered around him at York, and to the members of his privy council there, he made a short and comprehensive declaration of his just and liberal intentions and tender regard for the liberties of his people. And it was upon this express declaration that those lords contracted a solemn engagement, and signed a bond to stand by him, to defend his majesty's person, crown, and dignity, with his just and legal prerogative, against all persons, parties, and powers whatsoever.? surers, Sir John Wollaston, alderman of London, Alderman Towes, Alderman Warner, and Alderman Andrewes, to grant receipts to the lenders, and certain commissaries to value the horses and arms which should be furnished for the national service. Forthwith a great mass of money was heaped up at Guildhall, and daily increased by the free contributions of the people. The poor contributed with the rich. "Not only the wealthiest citizens and gentleman who were near dwellers brought in their large bags and goblets, but the poorer sort, like that widow in the gospel, presented their mites also; insomuch that it was a common jeer of men disaffected to the cause, to call this the thimble and bodkin army." Charles wrote a letter to the lord-mayor of London, the aldermen and sheriffs, forbidding these contributions, and inveighing bitterly against the parliament. This letter was wholly without effect, as was an attempt made at the same time to win over the fleet. Clarendon says that this latter scheme only failed through a mistake or blunder of the king's agents; but it appears evident that the cause of its failure really was the devotion of the captains and seamen to the popular cause. The Earl of Warwick, a great lover of the sea-service and highly popular as a commander, called a council of war, and laid before his officers both the ordinance of parliament which appointed him to the command, and the letters of the king which required him to surrender that command to Sir John Pennington. With the exception of five, all the sea-captains agreed with the earl that at this crisis the orders of the two houses were more binding than those of the sovereign, and that the fleet could not be put into the hands of Pennington without the greatest peril to the nation's liberties. At the same time the parliament, declaring all these measures to be against law and the national liberties, made their preparations with at least equal vigour. On the 10th of June an order was made by both houses for bringing in money and plate to maintain horse, horsemen, and arms, for the preservation of the public peace, and defence of the king's person; for the parliament, down to the appointment of Oliver Cromwell to On the 12th of July, the parliament, thus masthe chief command, always joined this expres-ters of the navy, voted that an army should be sion with that of their own safety. The two houses engaged the public faith, that whosoever should bring in any money or plate, or furnish men or arms, should be repaid with eight per "The spirit of chivalry left behind it a more valuable successor. The character of knight gradually subsided in that of gentleman; and the one distinguishes European society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as much as the other did in the preceding ages. A jealous sense of honour, less romantic, but equally elevated; a ceremonious gallantry and politeness; a strictness in devotional observances; an high pride of birth, and feeling of independence upon any sovereign for the dignity it gave; a sympathy for martial honour, though more subdued by civil habits, are the lineaments which prove an indisputable descent. The Cavaliers of Charles I. were genuine successors of Edward's knights; and the resemblance is much more striking, if we ascend to the civil wars of the League. Time has effaced much also of this gentlemanly, as it did before of the chivalrous character. From the latter part of the seventeenth century, its vigour and purity have undergone a tacit decay, and yielded, raised for the safety of the king's person and defence of the country and parliament; that the Earl of Essex should be captain-general of this army, and the Earl of Bedford general of the perhaps in every country, to increasing commercial wealth, more diffused instruction, the spirit of general liberty in some, and of servile obsequiousness in others, the modes of life in great cities, and the levelling customs of social intercourse."-Hallam, History of England, vol. iii. p. 510. 2 These are the names of those who subscribed:-The Lordkeeper Littleton; Duke of Richmond; Marquis of Hertford; Earls of Lindsay, Cumberland, Huntingdon, Bath, Southampton, Dorset, Salisbury, Northampton, Devonshire, Bristol, Westmoreland, Berkshire, Monmouth, Rivers, Newcastle, Dover, Caernarvon, Newport; Lords Mowbray and Maltravers, W11loughby of Eresby, Rich, Charles Howard of Charleton, Newark, Paget, Chandois, Falconbridge, Paulet, Lovelace, Coventry, Savile, Mohun, Dunsmore, Seymour, Grey of Ruthven, Falkland, the comptroller, Secretary Nicholas, Sir John Culpeper, Lord Chief-justice Banks. 3 May. |