argument for whatsoever they had done, and had only invited men to contribute freely what they thought fit to the charge in hand, without compelling any who were unwilling; they now took notice not only of those who opposed their proceedings, or privately dissuaded other men from concurring with them, but of those, who either out of fear, or covetousness, or both, had neglected really to contribute; and therefore they boldly published their votes, (which were laws to the people, or of much more authority,) "That all such persons, as should "not contribute to the charge of the common"wealth, in that time of eminent necessity, should "be disarmed and secured;" and that this vote might be the more terrible, they ordered, the same day, the mayor and sheriffs of London, "to search "the houses, and seize the arms belonging to some " aldermen, and other principal substantial citizens "of London," whom they named in their order; "for that it appeared by the report from their "committee, that they had not contributed, as they ought, to the charge of the commonwealth.”

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And by this means the poorest and lowest of the people became informers against the richest and most substantial; and the result of searching the houses and seizing the arms was, the taking away plate, and things of the greatest value, and very frequently plundering whatsoever was worth the keeping. They farther appointed, "that the "fines, rents, and profits of archbishops, bishops, "deans, deans and chapters, and of all delinquents, "who had taken up arms against the parliament, or had been active in the commission of array, "should be sequestered for the use and benefit of "the commonwealth." And that the king might not fare better than his adherents, they directed “all his revenue, arising out of rents, fines in "courts of justice, composition for wards, and the like, and all other his revenue, should be brought "into the several courts, and other places, where they ought to be paid in, and not issued forth, or paid forth, until farther order should be taken "by both houses of parliament;" without so much as assigning him any part of his own, towards the support of his own person.

This stout invasion of the people's property, and compelling them to part with what was most precious to them, any part of their estates, was thought by many an unpolitic act, in the morning of their sovereignty, and that it would wonderfully have irreconciled their new subjects to them. But the conductors well understood, that their empire already depended more on the fear, than love of the people; and that as they could carry on the war only by having money enough to pay the soldiers, so, that whilst they had that, probably they should not want men to recruit their armies upon any misadventure.

It cannot be imagined, how great advantage the king received by the parliament's rejecting the king's messages for peace, and their manner in doing it. All men's mouths were opened against them, the messages and answers being read in all churches; they, who could not serve him in their persons, contrived ways to supply him with money. Some eminent governors in the universities gave him notice that all the colleges were very plentifully supplied with plate, which would amount to a good value, and lay useless in their treasuries, there being enough besides for their common use; and there was not the least doubt, but that when

soever his majesty should think fit to require that treasure, it would all be sent to him. Of this the king had long thought, and, when he was at Nottingham, in that melancholic season, two gentlemen were despatched away to Oxford, and to Cambridge, (two to each,) with letters to the several vice-chancellors, that they should move the heads and principals of the several colleges and halls, that they would send their plate to the king; private advertisements being first sent to some confident persons to prepare and dispose those, without whose consent the service could not be performed.

This whole affair was transacted with so great secrecy and discretion, that the messengers returned from the two universities, in as short a time as such a journey could well be made; and brought with them all, or very near all, their plate, and a considerable sum of money, which was sent as a present to his majesty from several of the heads of colleges, out of their own particular stores; some scholars coming with it, and helping to procure horses and carts for the service; all which came safe to Nottingham, at the time when there appeared no more expectation of a treaty, and contributed much to raising the dejected spirits of the place. The plate was presently weighed out, and delivered to the several officers, who were intrusted to make levies of horse and foot, and who received it as money; the rest was carefully preserved to be carried with the king, when he should remove from thence; secret orders being sent to the officers of the mint, to be ready to come to his majesty as soon as he should require them; which he meant to do, as soon as he should find himself in a place convenient. There was now no more complaining or murmuring. Some gentlemen undertook to make levies upon their own credit and interest, and others sent money to the king upon their own inclinations.

There was a pleasant story, then much spoken of in the court, which administered some mirth. There were two great men who lived near Nottingham, both men of great fortunes and of great parsimony, and known to have much money lying by them, Pierrepoint, earl of Kingston, and Leake, lord Dencourt. To the former the lord Capel was sent; to the latter, John Ashburnham of the bedchamber, and of entire confidence with his master; each of them with a letter, all written with the king's hand, to borrow of each ten or five thousand pounds. Capel was very civilly received by the earl, and entertained as well as the ill accommodations in his house, and his manner of living, would admit. He expressed, with wonderful civil expressions of duty, "the great trouble he sùstained, in not being able to comply with his majesty's commands:" he said, "all men knew "that he neither had, nor could have money, because he had every year, of ten or a dozen which were past, purchased a thousand pounds land a year; and therefore he could not be imagined to "have any money lying by him, which he never "loved to have. But, he said, he had a neigh"bour, who lived within few miles of him, the "lord Dencourt, who was good for nothing, and "lived like a hog, not allowing himself necessa"ries, and who could not have so little as twenty "thousand pounds in the scurvy house in which "he lived;" and advised, "that he might be sent "to, who could not deny the having of money;'

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and concluded with great duty to the king, and detestation of the parliament, and as if he meant to consider farther of the thing, and to endeavour to get some money for him; which though he did not remember to send, his affections were good, and he was afterwards killed in the king's service. Ashburnham got no more money, nor half so many good words. The lord Dencourt had so little correspondence with the court, that he had never heard his name; and when he had read the king's letter, he asked from whom it was; and when he told him, "that he saw it was from the king," he replied, "that he was not such a fool as to believe "it. That he had received letters both from this king and his father;" and hastily ran out of the room, and returned with half a dozen letters in his hand; saying, "that those were all the king's "letters, and that they always begun with Right trusty and well-beloved, and the king's name was ever at the top; but this letter begun with Dencourt, and ended with your loving friend C. R., "which, he said, he was sure could not be the "king's hand." His other treatment was according to this, and, after an ill supper, he was shewed an indifferent bed; the lord telling him, "that he "would confer more of the matter in the morning;" he having sent his servant with a letter to the lord Falkland, who was his wife's nephew, and who had scarce ever seen his uncle. The man came to Nottingham about midnight, and found my lord Falkland in his bed. The letter was to tell him, "that one Ashburnham was with him, who brought him a letter, which he said was from "the king; but he knew that could not be; and "therefore he desired to know, who this man was, "whom he kept in his house till the messenger "should return." In spite of the laughter, which could not be forborne, the lord Falkland made haste to inform him of the condition and quality of the person, and that the letter was writ with the king's own hand, which he seldom vouchsafed to do. And the messenger returning early the next morning, his lordship treated Mr. Ashburnham with so different a respect, that he, who knew nothing of the cause, believed that he should return with all the money that was desired. But it was not long before he was undeceived. The lord, with as cheerful a countenance as his could be, for he had a very unusual and unpleasant face, told him, "that though he had no money himself, "but was in extreme want of it, he would tell him "where he might have money enough; that he "had a neighbour, who lived within four or five miles, the earl of Kingston, that never did good to any body, and loved nobody but himself, who "had a world of money, and could furnish the king with as much as he had need of; and if he "should deny that he had money when the king "sent to him, he knew where he had one trunk "full, and would discover it; and that he was so "ill-beloved, and had so few friends, that nobody "would care how the king used him." And this good counsel was all Mr. Ashburnham could make of him and yet this wretched man was so far from wishing well to the parliament, that when they had prevailed, and were possessed of the whole kingdom, as well as of Nottinghamshire, he would not give them one penny; nor compound for his delinquency, as they made the having lived in the king's quarters to be; but suffered his whole estate to be sequestered, and lived in a very miser

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able fashion, only by what he could ravish from his tenants; who, though they paid their rents to the parliament, were forced by his rage and threats to part with so much as kept him, till he died, in that condition he chose to live in his conscience being powerful enough to deny himself, though it could not dispose him to grant to the king. And thus the two messengers returned to the king, so near the same time, that he who came first had not given his account to the king, before the other entered into his presence.

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The same day, Mr. Sacheverel, who was a gentleman, and known to be very rich, being pressed to lend the king five hundred pounds, sent him a present of one hundred pieces in gold; "which," he said, " he had procured with great difficulty;" and protested, with many execrable imprecations, "that he had never in his life seen five hundred 'pounds of his own together;" when, within one month after the king's departure, the parliament troops, which borrowed in another style, took five thousand pounds from him, which was lodged with him, in the chamber in which he lay. Which is therefore mentioned in this place, that upon this occasion it may be seen, that the unthrifty retention of their money, which possessed the spirits of those, who did really wish the king all the success he wished for himself, was the unhappy promotion of all his misfortunes: and if they had, in the beginning, but lent the king the fifth part of what, after infinite losses, they found necessary to sacrifice to his enemies, in the conclusion, to preserve themselves from total ruin, his majesty had been able, with God's blessing, to have preserved them, and to have destroyed all his enemies.

The news of the important victory before Worcester found the king at Chester, whither his majesty thought necessary to make a journey himself, as soon as he came to Shrewsbury, both to assure that city to his service, which was the key to Ireland, and to countenance the lord Strange (who, by the death of his father, became within few days earl of Derby) against some opposition he met with, on the behalf of the parliament. Here Crane, sent by prince Rupert, gave his majesty an account of that action; and presented him with the ensigns, which had been taken; and informed him of the earl of Essex's being in Worcester; which made the king to return sooner to Shrewsbury than he intended, and before the earl of Derby was possessed of that power, which a little longer stay would have given him.

Prince Rupert the same night, after his victory, finding the gross of the rebels' army to be within five or six miles, against which that city was in no degree tenable, though all the king's foot had been there, retired from Worcester on the Welsh side of the river, without any disturbance, and with all his prisoners, (colonel Sandys only excepted, whom he charitably left to die of his wounds there,) into his quarters near Shrewsbury; the earl of Essex being so much startled with his late defeat, that he advanced not in two days after; and then being surely informed, that he should find no resistance, he entered with his army into Worcester; using great severity to those citizens, who had been eminently inclined to the king's service, and sending the principal of them prisoners to London.

Upon the king's coming to Shrewsbury, there was a very great conflux of the gentry of that and the neighbouring [counties,] which were generally

well affected, and made great professions of duty to his majesty: some of them undertook to make levies of horse and foot, and performed it at their own charge. The town was very commodious in all respects, strong in its situation; and in respect of its neighbourhood to North Wales, and the use of the Severn, yielded excellent provisions of all kinds; so that both court and army were very well accommodated, only the incurable disease of want of money could not be assuaged in either. Yet whilst they sat still, it was not very sensible, much less importunate. The soldiers behaved themselves orderly, and the people were not inclined or provoked to complain of their new guests; and the remainder of the plate, which was brought from the universities, together with the small presents in money, which were made to the king by many particular persons, supplied the present necessary expenses very conveniently. But it was easily discerned, that, when the army should move, which the king resolved it should do with all possible expedition, the necessity of money would be very great, and the train of artillery, which is commonly a spunge that can never be filled or satisfied, was destitute of all things which were necessary for motion. Nor was there any hope that it could march, till a good sum of money were assigned to it; some carriage-horses, and waggons, which were prepared for the service of Ireland, and lay ready at Chester, to be transported with the earl of Leicester, lieutenant of that kingdom, were brought to Shrewsbury, by his majesty's order, for his own train and the earl's passionate labouring to prevent or remedy that application, with some other reasons, hindered the earl himself from pursuing that journey; and, in the end, deprived him of that province. But this seasonable addition to the train increased the necessity of money, there being more use of it thereby.

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morning a person of quality, and very much trusted by all that party, came to him to confer upon that subject; and shewed a list of the names of all the gentlemen of quality and fortune of that religion, and who were all convict recusants, and who lived within those counties of Shropshire and Stafford ; who appeared to be a good number of very valuable men, on whose behalf he had only authority to conclude, though he believed that the method, they agreed on there, would be submitted to, and confirmed by that people in all other places. He said," they would by no means hearken to any "motion for the loan of money, for which they "had paid so dear, upon their serving the king in "that manner, in his first expedition against the "Scots." It was in the end agreed upon, that the king should write to every one of them to pay him an advance of two or three years of such rent, as they were every year obliged to pay to him, upon the composition they had made with him for their estates; which would amount to a considerable sum of money; which letters were accordingly writ, and within ten or twelve days between four and five thousand pounds were returned to his majesty; which was a seasonable supply for his affairs.

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At his return to Shrewsbury, the king found as much done towards his march, as he expected. And then the other expedient (which was hinted before) for money offered itself. There was a gentleman of a very good extraction, and of the best estate of any gentleman of that country, one sir Richard Newport, who lived within four or five miles of Shrewsbury, and who was looked upon as a very prudent man, and had a very powerful influence upon that people, and was of undoubted affections and loyalty to the king, and to the government both in church and state : his eldest son, Francis Newport, was a young gentleman of great expectation, and of excellent parts, a member of the house of commons, who had behaved himself there very well. This gentleman' intimated to a friend of his, " that, if his father might be made a baron, he did believe he might be prevailed "with to present his majesty with a good sum of money." It was proposed to the king, who had no mind to embrace the proposition, his majesty taking occasion often to speak against "making " merchandise of honour; how much the crown "suffered at present by the license of that kind, which had been used during the favour of the " duke of Buckingham; and that he had not taken a firmer resolution against many things, than against this particular expedient for the raising money." However, after he returned from Chester, and found by the increase of his levies, and the good disposition all things were in, that he might in a short time be able to march, and in so good a condition, that he should rather seek the rebels, than decline meeting with them, if the indispensable want of money did not make his motion impossible; the merit and ability of the person, and the fair expectation from his posterity, he having two sons, both very hopeful, prevailed with his majesty to resume the same overture; and in few days it was perfected, and sir Ri. Newport was made baron Newport of Ercall; who presented the sum of six thousand pounds to his majesty; whereupon all preparations for the army were prosecuted with effect.

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As soon as the king came to Shrewsbury, he