and appointed Pennington to the command of the fleet; but the sailors would not receive this officer, and the parliament declared his appointment to be illegal. Charles, according to Clarendon, concealed his displeasure at the conduct of Northumberland, thinking it not then seasonable to resent it, because he had nothing to object against him. but his complying with the command of the parliament, who would have made it their own quarrel, and must have obliged that Earl to put his whole interest into their hands, and "to have run their fortune, to which he was naturally too much inclined; and then his majesty foresaw that there would have been no fleet at all set out that year, by their having the command of all the money which was to be applied to that service. Whereas, by his majesty's concealing his resentment, there was a good fleet made ready, and set out; and many gentlemen settled in the command of ships, of whose affection and fidelity his majesty was assured that no superior officer could corrupt it, but that they would at all times repair to his service whenever he required it. And, indeed, his majesty had an opinion of the devotion of the whole body of common seamen to his service, because he had bountifully so much mended their condition, and increased their pay, that he thought they would have even thrown the Earl of Warwick overboard when he should command them, and so the respiting the doing of it would be of little importance." All this means, that the king hoped to gain over the fleet as he had hoped to gain possession of Hull by a ruse; but the event showed that he had widely miscalculated the temper of the English seamen. If we are to believe the royalist historian, the king had not at this time one barrel of powder, nor one musket, nor any other provision necessary for an army; and, what was worse, he was not sure of any port at which warlike stores might be safely landed from the continent. "He expected with impatience the arrival of all those necessaries, by the care and activity of the queen, who was then in Holland, and, by the sale of her own as well as of the crown jewels, and by the friendship of Henry Prince of Orange, did all she could to provide all that was necessary." The parliament, well aware of these preparations in Holland, decreed, that whosoever should lend or bring money into the kingdom raised upon the crown jewels should be held as an enemy to the state. Some weeks before this, when the act was passed for the speedy reducing of the rebels in Ireland, and the immediate securing the future peace and safety of England, many members of parliament voluntarily subscribed large sums of money, and their example was followed by other gentlemen and freeholders, who set on foot subscriptions in their several counties. The county of Buckingham, for example, advanced 6000l. Foremost in the list of the subscribing members in the Commons, we find the names of Sir Henry Martin for 1200l.,

Mr. Walter Long, Sir Arthur Hazlerig, and Sir John Harrison for the same sum each, Mr. Oliver Cromwell for 500l., John Pym for 600/., John Hampden 1000/., Bulstrode Whitelock 600l., &c.

While the king was lying at York he was writing hard and working by other means to interest the Scots in his favour, and to get up a strong party among them. From the Scottish council he received a dutiful and affectionate answer, and he also got a petition from divers of the nobility and people there full of expressions of zeal and loyalty. But the English parliament, hearing of these proceedings, " took a course to turn the balance," and, within eight days after, the Scottish council declared both to king and parliament their earnest desire to see them reconciled with one another; and they moreover humbly desired his majesty " to hearken to his greatest, his best, and most unparalleled council." They also dissuaded the king from his journey into Ireland, and prayed that a mediation between him and his English parliament might be set on foot at home ere the breach grew wider; and, in the end, the Scottish council came 66 to a large manifestation of their true and hearty affection to the parliament of England," protesting that they would never de anything contrary to them or their privileges. The Scottish ministers, indeed, were checked in any exuberance of loyalty by the stern spirit of the people, who still looked upon the king as the enemy to their kirk and their liberties, and upon the English House of Commons as their best friends. No sooner had the people of Edinburgh heard of the correspondence carrying on between Charles and the council, than they petitioned the latter not to take part, by any verbal or real engagement to the king, against the parliament of England. "These passages in Scotland" were of much advantage to the affairs of the English parliament, who still protested their fidelity to the king, at the same time that they courted the Scots with very kind expressions.†

Several members of both Houses-some who were in the service of the court, others who believed that the parliament was going too far or too fast-now withdrew to the king at York. For the present, the Commons satisfied themselves with passing an order that every member should be in his place by a certain day, or forfeit a hundred pounds to the Irish war. The way in which most of the ministers and old servants of the crown had sueaked off to the north seemed to betray not only a wonderful fear of the parliament, but also a want of confidence in the legality or purity of the cause to which they were about to commit themselves for better or for worse. On his first arrival at York, Charles was attended by no other ostensible minister than Secretary Nicholas, a timid and wavering old man, who never knew half of his master's mind, or saw the full intention of any measure proposed by the king. Lord Falkland, Hyde, and Culpeper, who had abandoned the par

liament, and pledged themselves to the court,* and who were, in fact, the chief directors of the royal councils (though they again scarcely knew more of Charles's mind than Nicholas), remained in London to watch the proceedings of the House of Commons, and to perform secret services of various kinds. According to Clarendon's own account, the Commons had "long detested and suspected Mr. Hyde (himself), from the time of their first remonstrance down to his framing the king's messages and answers, which they now every day received, to their intolerable vexation, yet knew not how to accuse him. But now that the Earls of Essex and Holland had discovered his being shut up with the king at Greenwich, and the Marquess of Hamilton had once before found him very early in private with the king at Windsor, at a time when the king thought all passages had been stopped; together with his being of late more absent from the House than he had used to be; and the resort of the other two every night to his lodging, satisfied them that he was the person; and they resolved to disenable him to manage that officet long." That is, the Commons now suspected not only that he was the writer of the king's declarations, &c., but that he was also engaged in conducting secret manœuvres in and about London and the parliament. Sir John Culpeper, according to the royalist historian, had as many eyes upon the Commons as they had upon him (Hyde), and an equal animosity against them; and, what was a better service to the triumvirate, Sir John" had familiarity and friendship with some persons, who, from the second or third hand, came to know many of the greatest designs, before they were brought upon the stage."

By

these indirect sources of information, Culpeper learned (or so says Clarendon) that it was the intention of the Commons to send himself, Lord Falkland, and Hyde to the Tower, upon the charge of giving evil counsel to the king, and preparing those answers and messages they received from his majesty, whenever they should find them all three in the House together. And hereupon, according to the same authority, the triumvirate agreed that they would never be there altogether, and seldom two at a time; and that when they were in the House they should only listen, and speak no more than was of absolute necessity.

For now," says Clarendon, "it was grown a very difficult thing for a man who was in their disfavour to speak against what they proposed, but that they would find some exception to some word or expression: upon which, after he had been called upon to explain, he was obliged to withdraw; and

They had all three been in very decided opposition to the court; they had all been actively concerned in the impeachment of Strafford, and they had all, it should appear, voted for his bill of attaindercertainly not one of the three had voted against it. Hyde, so much better known by his title of Lord Clarendon, had been eloquently fierce against the council of York; Lord Falkland, the idol of his party, had voted for the exclusion of the bishops from the House of Lords. In fact, up to the end of the preceding year, Hyde, Falkland, and Culpeper, were all and each of them as enthusiastic on the side of the parliament as Hampden or as Pym. + Life. Life.

66

then they had commonly a major part to send him to the Tower or to expel him the House, or at least to oblige him to receive a reprehension at the bar upon his knees. And so they had used Sir Ralph Hopton at that time; who, excepting to some expression that was used in a declaration prepared by a committee, and presented to the House, which he said was dishonourable to the king, they said, it was a tax upon the committee, caused him to withdraw, and committed him to the Tower; which terrified many from speaking at all, and caused more to absent themselves from the House, where too small numbers appeared any day." About the end of April, Hyde received a letter from the king, commanding him to repair to York as soon as he could be spared from his business in London. The historian says, that he communicated this letter to his two friends, Lord Falkland and Sir John Culpeper, who agreed with him that he should defer that journey for some time, there being every day great occasion of consulting together, and of sending dispatches to the king* which dispatches, like nearly all the state papers, were written by 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. The historian, however, admits that Charles had reason for suspecting this loyalty of his lord keeper. He says, "From his recovery of a great sickness (which seized on him shortly after he was preferred to that great place, and which, indeed, robbed him for ever of much of that natural vigour and vivacity of mind which he had formerly enjoyed) his compliance was so great and so visible, not only in not opposing that prevalent sense of the House which was prejudicial to the king, but in concurring with it in his own vote, very much against what his friends thought was agreeable to his understanding, insomuch as the potent and popular Lords looked upon him as their own; and the king was so far unsatisfied with his carriage, that once, after his majesty's being at York, he resolved to take the great seal from him, but was

"And it was a wonderful expedition that was then used between York and London, when gentlemen undertook the service, as enough were willing to do; insomuch as when they dispatched 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. According to this statement, the couriers must have ridden at the rate of twelve miles an hour at the least, an expedition which seems, in the circumstances, not merely wonderful, but incredible.

+ Life.

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 manoeuvre, which, like most of Charles's measures, and all other manoeuvres, is liable to a contrariety of doubts, is, that a groom of the chamber carried off the seal, and that the lord keeper stole out of London, and by bye-roads got to York, where he was regarded but coldly by his majesty. Clarendon says that the king was not satisfied with Littleton, protesting that he did not like his humours, and knew not what to make of him ;* that his majesty would not for a long time redeliver the seal to him, but always kept it in his own bed-chamber, and that men remarked "a visible dejectedness" in the lord keeper. The historian tells us that all this gave him much trouble, as well it might, if his own story were the true one; and he takes to himself the credit of procuring better treatment for the keeper. It is quite certain, however, that Charles never placed any confidence in Littleton, that that adroit lawyer met with the usual fate of double dealers, was despised by both parties, lost all spirit and talent for business, and concluded his career about two years after at Oxford, in neglect, poverty, and mental wretchedness. .

Hist., edition of 1826.

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 him much to do there, and "that he thought now there would be less reason every day for his being concealed." Before Littleton's flight, Clarendon had arranged all matters for the journey, resolving with Lord Falkland to stay at friend's house near Oxford, a little out of the road he meant to take for York, till he should hear of the keeper's motion; and to cover his absence from the House of Commons, he had told the Speaker that it was very necessary he should take the air of the country for his health. As soon as the keeper had flown, notice was taken in the House of the absence of his friend Hyde; inquiries were made what was become of him, and it was moved that he might be sent for. The Speaker said that that gentleman had acquainted him with his going into the country to recover his health by fresh air, and that Dr. Winston, his physician, had certified that he was troubled with the stone. Mr. Peard said confidently," that he was troubled with no other stone than the stone in his heart, and therefore he would have him sent for wherever he was; for he was most confident that he was doing them mischief wherever he was." The House, however, who probably did not consider the historian of quite so much importance as he considered himself, neglected to take any steps for his apprehension for the present; and when

Life.