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of churches, but the troubles of the time prevented the design from being carried out. This Convocation having continued after the dissolution of Parliament, its proceedings did not become law. There were signs that Laud's life was no longer secure. The Scottish Covenanters held assassination of the enemies of their faith to be lawful, and Laud received a letter from a gentleman, who said that while travelling in the north of England, he had heard hopes expressed that the fate of Buckingham was in store for Laud.

Dreading the attacks of the rabble, the High Commission met at Lambeth, and it was well they did so, for a mob broke into their court and tore down the benches, swearing they would have no Bishops and no Consistory.

Meantime the Bishops, who were of one mind with Laud, attempted to administer the oath, but such clergy as most needed to be restrained by it refused. Petitions poured in on the King from the counties against it, and the et cetera, a mere oversight, became another element in the general mistrust. Some Bishops did not mend the matter by trying to make their clergy take it on their knees; others did not venture to adminster it at all, and finally it was decided to defer it till the next Convocation. The loyal Bishops and clergy were so unpopular, and so much suspected of the bugbear of Popery, that the sums they contributed to the war with the Scots only made it more unpopular. And the ship-money and all other dues that could be collected without Parliament, were called in rigidly, although with increasing difficulty, and more and more resistance, people expecting by force of numbers to elude the prosecution that Hampden had undergone. The militia was called out, but the amount raised for pay was insufficient, and there was a stubborn resistance on the part of the men enrolled who were said to be as dangerous (or more so) to their own officers than to the enemy.

Some of the Dorsetshire men actually murdered their lieutenant, and threatened the other officers till they were allowed to disband themselves. A captain was also killed by the Devon contingent, on the suspicion of his being a Papist. Some could only bring their soldiers along by singing psalms with them "for all their religion lies in a psalm," and others were compelled by the soldiers' clamours to receive the Holy Communion as a test of their conformity. Where these disorderly men halted, they went into the churches, pulled up the altar rails, and burnt them before the clergyman's door, being in fact maddened by the persuasion that reducing the Scots simply meant bringing in Popery.

There was reason to suspect that the heads of the Puritans were all the time in communication with the Scots, but this failed of proof. At any rate the Scottish army quickly reassembled under Leslie at Dunglas, 20,000 foot, and 2,500 horse. The Scots Parliament voted supplies, and till those could be raised, contributions of money, plate, and provisions were volunteered. It was resolved not to give offence to the

CAMEO XXVII

The Et Cetera oath. 1640.

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English by doing them any damage, and the gudewives of Edinburgh supplied quantities of material for tents from the stores of home-spun drapery which were accumulating for their daughters' weddings, being thereto moved by a sermon "sweetly spoken" by Mr. Rollock. Cannon were made of tin, coated with leather, and corded round, two of these could be carried on a horse, and which could be fired four or five times before they came to pieces.

Thus equipped, the army passed the Tweed on the 20th of August, with Montrose leading the vanguard. All drew up on Newcastle Moor.

Lord Conway, whom Charles had made General of the Horse, was on the south side of the Tyne with 3,000 fɔot, and 1,500 horse. The two armies were opposite to one another, with the ford of Newburn between them, five miles from Newcastle. Leslie had made this move with great prudence. The possession of Newcastle was most important to him, but he preferred fighting a battle for it to taking it by storm, and thus awakening English dread and hatred of the Scots. On the English side the bank of the river was flat, on the Scottish it was steep, covered with rough scrubby bushes, and the village and church were on their side, a stout square short Norman tower where Leslie placed some musketeers, and he also concealed his leathern guns in the brushwood; but for many hours there was no attack on either side, and the Scots and English watered their horses on the opposite sides without doing one another any harm.

At last a Scottish gentleman with a black feather rode down, and while his horse was drinking fixed his eye critically upon the English entrenchments. Either in anger or merely to scare him away, some one fired, the black plume fell, and not only the musketeers began instantly to avenge his wound, but the roar of artillery burst forth from the copsewood, to the surprise and dismay of the English, who had flattered themselves that the enemy were destitute of ordnance.

The Scots began to cross the river, Lord Conway's foot fled in confusion. Only a troop of gentlemen, well mounted and wearing breastplates, held out, and they fought gallantly until they were overpowered and made prisoners with their captain, Lord Wilmot. It was the first skirmish of the Rebellion, fought on the 28th of August, 1640. Only sixty were slain.

The people of Newcastle were terrified to the last degree when the army fell back and left them to the mercy of the Scots. Great numbers fled, leaving their houses open, but the Scots were very forbearing, and though they quartered the men in the houses, and used the corn, cheese and beer, they paid for some, and gave bonds for the rest, nor was there any violence, though a heavy contribution was laid on the Mayor and corporation, and of course the royal stores of provisions and ammunition were seized without scruple.

Conway knew that he could not hold Durham, and fell back on Darlington where he met Strafford, and they joined the King at

Northallerton, whence the whole Army retreated to York. There the Covenanters, still advancing, sent him a petition humbly worded, but intimating that they relied on the support of the English Parliament when their grievances were considered. The King on this asked for a statement of their demands, promising to lay it before the great council of peers, which he summoned to meet him at York on the 26th of September. Such a council was not without precedent, though only of many centuries back, and he hoped by this means to avert the assembly of the Commons, but in vain. The demands of the Scots were the same as ever, and twelve of the English peers, Bedford, Essex, Hertford, Warwick, Bristol, Mulgrave, Say and Sele, Howard, Bolingbroke, Mandeville, Brooke and Paget presented a petition, strongly objecting to the Scottish war, to the et cetera oath, the employment of Roman Catholic officers, the bringing over of Irish soldiers, the ship-money, the Star Chamber, the tonnage and poundage, the intermission of parliaments. The like petition was sent up from the citizens of London although the Privy Council did their best to hinder it. The Yorkshire gentry, who had to contribute to the support of the army, followed suit; Strafford declared privately that loyal support could not be brought together under two months, and the King found there was no other alternative than to appoint a commission to examine into the Scottish grievances at Ripon, and at the same time to issue writs for the election of a new House of Commons to meet on the 3rd of November, 1640.

CAMEO

XXVII.

Council at

York.

1540.

CAMEO XXVIII.

OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT.

(1640-1641.)

CAMFO XXVIII

1640.

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THE Long Parliament marks one of the great crises in the history of our country. The fifteen years of Charles's reign, added to the The Long twenty three since his father's accession, had-alike by the evil and Parliament. the good they had done-embittered all the relations between the crown and the people. The Tudors had been actually far more oppressive, but they had had the power of carrying the hearts of the people along with them, and the precedents they had left were simply dangerous. Even a succession of Henry Tudors would scarcely have been able to forge yokes for men of the English temper, such as had gradually been effected in France, for the material of the nation was far tougher, and more steadily determined, and ranks and classes were welded together in a manner utterly unknown in France, where nobility, clergy, bourgeoisie, peasantry, magistracy, were all separate castes, scarcely ever interchangeable and never supporting one another ; whereas, in England, persons born in the one class were continually passing into some one of the others, upwards or downwards.

When we find that Shakespeare made even such a country squire as Justice Shallow to have kept his terms at the Inns of Court, we see how the gentleman of the next generation came to be resolute on points of law, and could stand beside the actual lawyers in their resistance.

The whole course of the last century had been educating the country in a strong Calvinism, on behalf of which the conservativism of the people was enlisted. Romanism had shown itself in its most hateful light in the Marian persecution, the repeated attempts at assassination and the Gunpowder Plot; and the attempt to revive Catholicism was distrusted as a covert means of bringing back Popery. Far greater wisdom than churchman or statesman had yet acquired

was needed to understand that religious reforms enforced by the State only produce exasperation, not conviction. And thus, as the Church and the crown made common cause, they were equally attacked by the Puritan and the political reformer; although the former would have let the royal power alone save for the interference with his religion, and the latter had no enmity to the Church, so long as she did not borrow the secular arm.

Thus, throughout the country, the elections tended to the choice of members who would resist to the utmost those exactions, and those penalties and restrictions which had been felt as sore grievances both with respect to property and worship; and the members chosen came to Westminster with the determination to win the entire recognition of what they held to be morally and legally the rights of Englishmen, and to guard them from any future encroachment. Many of them little guessed how far they would be carried! In the elections, recommendations from the Court were absolutely prejudicial to the candidates ; and scarcely a third of the returns were of gentlemen on whose support the King could reckon. Yet it was said that the wealth of the members of the House of Commons doubled that of the Peers. Only two of the King's servants, as persons holding office were called, obtained a seat, Sir Harry Vane, and Mr. Secretary Windebank, the latter of whom was much disliked, as being connected with the Archbishop. The speaker whom the King had intended to recommend to the House, Gardiner, the Recorder of London, lost his election, and the Commons chose Mr. Lenthall, a barrister, who was approved of by the King. He was supposed to be of no party, and he proved himself weak and irresolute. Petitions from all quarters against grievances were brought up by troops of gentlemen on horseback, to be laid before the two Houses.

The King, in manifestly low spirits, went down to Westminster by water, and opened Parliament on the 3rd of November, 1640. He made a speech in which he recommended three subjects to the consideration of the two Houses, namely, the removal of the rebels, the payment of the army, and the redress of grievances. The word "rebels" gave offence at once to those who chose to hold the Scots as subjects of another kingdom fighting for their privileges.

The Commons, being at last together, meant to prevent being separated until they had thoroughly gone into the grievances. The first thing they did after choosing Lenthall was to hold consultations. The lawyer Pym, with John Hampden and Oliver St. John, were looked on as leaders of what was called the Country party, because of their former resistance to the ship-money, and to them were added other men, highly displeased with the present state of things. There was Denzil Hollis, second son to the Earl of Clare, Nathaniel Fiennes, a younger son to the Puritan Lord Say, Lord Digby, a strange uncertain person, eldest son to the Earl of Bristol, and Sir Harry Vane's eldest son, who bore the same name and title as his father, it being the

CAMEO

XXVIII

Opening of Parliament.

1040.

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