insurrection

in Scotland.

the excitement was renewed, and now manifested itself over a wider extent and in a more elevated sphere. There was a great resort to Edinburgh. The populace, Spread of the in chase of the Bishop of Galloway, clamored at the door of the chamber where the Privy Council October. were met, and threatened to force an entrance; and the City Council had to apply to some popular noblemen for protection. Petitions began to come in, each set bearing signatures of more consideration than the last.

The king's fierce obstinacy, or evil fate, made him immovable against the representations urged by his own creatures as to the critical state of affairs; and before long he had to hear that an extra-constitutional government was set up, consisting of four houses, called The Tables. They were composed respectively of nobles, of gentry, of clergymen, and of burgesses. The movement was no longer an aimless tumult of "base and unruly people"; it was henceforward to be conducted with equal dignity, order, address, and energy. The "Covenant"-the first fruit of the new combination — was subscribed with enthusiasm by persons of both sexes and all ranks throughout the kingdom. Crowds pressed into the churchyards of Edinburgh and Glasgow, to affix their names to it in characters traced with their blood on parchment spread out upon gravestones. It bound them together "until death,” in resistance to religious usurpation.

1638.

The mining and countermining of state contests succeeded; - reluctant, insufficient, and suspected concessions on the king's part, more comprehensive and resolute demands on the other. At length his malignant

1 "These base and unruly people, who were so much out in their first act of rebellion, though they were but asses, yet they were cried up for having their mouths opened immediately by God, as the mouth of

Balaam's ass, to the upbraiding of all the rest of the land, when they should have cried and brayed as they did." (King Charles, Large Declaration, &c., 31.)

1639.

an army to

star led him to the North, to chastise the insolent rebellion. In his army, of twenty thousand foot Advance of and three thousand horse,1 there was a halting the king with affection for the cause, and accordingly little Scotland. stomach for the fight. It was no mercenary host, but composed of men who, from high to low, had been outraged by the tyrannical conduct of the reign. The king had not taken the rebels by surprise. The Scottish general, Alexander Leslie, an experienced soldier of the Continental wars, met him with a hasty levy, but one scarcely less numerous than his own, — inspired with an ardor of purpose which was wholly wanting to the royal troops, and officered by veterans who had learned their art under Gustavus Adolphus, and whom the danger of their country had now called home. After some bloodless manoeuvring, in which the king had the worst, he granted the insurgents a "pacification"; rather, we should say, they June 18. granted it to him, for, with all their excitement, they had leaders capable of seeing, that, at this juncture, moderation on their part was policy.

2

Returning to London, the king at once found cause to revise the decision to which the manifold perplexi

1 This is Hume's estimate, in Chap. LIII. According to Clarendon (Book II.) the force consisted of about twelve thousand men, half of them cavalry.

2 "It was an army full of ministers of religion, accoutred with swords and pistols; an army which assembled, at beat of drum, to engage in prayer; an army which was within itself a church, of which every corps possessed a presbytery, — and whose regiments were represented in a General Assembly; an army encamped under a forest of banners, on each of which was written in golden letters, 'For Christ's Crown and Covenant.' Could such men be

reconciled to such a sovereign?" (Duke of Argyll, Presbytery Examined, an Essay Critical and Historical on the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, 168. - My subject does not involve a résume of the religious politics of Scotland. But I cannot refrain from professing my obligations to a treatise, of which the reader hesitates whether most to admire the thorough knowledge, the sagacious discrimination, or the generous and religious tone. Such calm and wise surveys of an excited period are among the gems of historical literature.)

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ment and

Assembly.

August.

ties of the hour had brought him, for the dismission of his array. The Parliament and the General Proceedings Assembly of the northern kingdom, which had of the Scotbeen convened agreeably to a stipulation with its army, proved contumacious. The Assembly voted that episcopacy was unlawful in Scotland, that the Church canons and liturgy were Popish, and that the High-Commission Court was a tyranny; decisions which only a speedy prorogation prevented the Parliament from confirming. Again the bewildered monarch concluded that he must have recourse to arms. But, the second time, it required to be done under more painful conditions. The recent fruitless expedition had exhausted the scanty accumulation of past years. The illegal methods of obtaining revenue had proved insufficiently productive, and to strain the prerogative further at such a time of general discontent was too perilous. There remained no resource but the dreaded one of convoking a Parliament. The existence of a rebellion, and that on the part of Scotchmen, with whom the feud of past ages was not yet quieted, would afford strong ground for appeals to the loyalty of the Commons of England; and some gracious concessions, fair words, and dexterous management might do the rest. At all events, in the circumstances, the measure was an apparent necessity.

Fourth

1640.

April 13.

After the longest vacation that it had ever witnessed, the old Palace at Westminster gathered again King within its walls the lords, knights, and bur- Charles's gesses of England. They proved to have come Parliament. together in a wonderfully placid temper, considering the provocations which were uppermost in every man's thoughts. The business of the lower House was opened by Mr. Pym with a recital of public grievances, in which he was followed by other mem1 Parliamentary History, II. 546-551.

1

bers. The relation of Puritan religion to English liberties broke forth at once. They have so brought it to pass," said Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, "that under the name of Puritan all our religion is branded.

Whosoever squares his actions by any rule, either divine or human, he is a Puritan. Whosoever would be governed by the king's laws, he is a Puritan. He that will not do whatsoever other men would have him do, he is a Puritan."1 When, at the end of a week, the other House, on the instigation of the court, pressed for an immediate supply, the Commons resented the intrusion. But the king made a personal appeal for twelve subsidies; and the money seemed on the point of being given, had not his own arbitrary humor determined otherwise. While things were in this posture, and it appeared that a day's action might put them in a train of permanent peace, he suddenly dissolved the Parliament, to the consternation of his wisest friends, and the infinite content of those who already carried their distrust of him so far as to hope that his perversity would bring about his ruin. Patriotic but loyal men went away, disgusted afresh with the impracticable arrogance of a sovereign, whose errors they had had but too much reason to condemn and deplore, but had not yet become indisposed to forgive.

Its dissolu

tion.

May 5.

This error was repented of as soon as it was irreparable. The king consulted whether he could not construe the dissolution as a prorogation merely, and, being advised that this was impossible, complained impotently of the malign influence which had misguided him into such a fault.2

It was with no discouragement as to the prospect of future Parliaments, that the popular leaders saw him

1 Rushworth, Collections, IV. 24; May, History of the Long Parliament, 73.

2 Clarendon, Book II.

The royal

collect from private lenders the sum of three hundred thousand pounds for another campaign. It was much to have reduced him to that resource, which they well knew was one to be speedily exhausted, leaving none in its place but that public treasury which the Commons would supply in their own time and on their own terms. His spiritless and disaffected army was beaten by the Scots at Newburn in a skirmish which cost little blood, compared with its impor- army beaten tance as a political indication. Having crossed by the Scots. the river Tyne, the victors continued to ad- Aug. 28. vance, sending apologies and assurances of loyalty to their retreating king. His money was spent. His illpaid and undisciplined troops were not far from a general mutiny, while some of those about his person murmured the more from mortification at their own misconduct in the field. Again he consented to treat. Meanwhile, intensely dreading a House of Commons, he revived a custom long disused, and convoked Council of at York a Council of Peers. But the peers saw nothing better to advise than submission to the hated necessity of another Parliament; and, before the year was out, it was assembled, the last with which the infatuated monarch was to contend. while, a truce for two months with the invaders was arranged on shameful terms, — among others, that, during its continuance, they should receive eight hundred and fifty pounds a day, and that, in default of payment, they might force it from the northern counties, where they were also provided with winter quarters.

Peers.

Sept. 24.

Mean

Truce with

the Scots.

Oct. 16.

Charles's

The history of the assembly known as the Long Parliament is too familiar for even a brief recital King of it in this place. After so much wrong endured, so much alarm, and so much patience, ment. the recovery and security of the liberties of Eng- Nov. 3.

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