the power of the sword, as that of the purse had already been secured. The king's March. Down to this time, it may be presumed that Charles had flattered himself with the idea of having made no important concessions but such as under future more favorable circumstances he might revoke. resolution But now he was called upon to surrender the to resist. instrument needful for the recovery of what had been resigned. Here then he turned, and stood at bay. First he temporized and argued. Next, taking his two sons, he moved northwards to York, whither he was followed by numerous nobles and gentlemen. When, from this distance, he retorted the charges of the Parliament in a bolder tone, they proceeded to measures for officering the militia, and taking possession of the garrisons. At Hull was a magazine of military stores, which the king would have seized; and he presented himself before the town for that purpose. But the Governor held it for the Parliament, and denied him entrance. Messages, declarations, popular appeals in proclamations and counter-proclamations, succeeded to each other. The king rejected a basis of settlement offered him by Parliament in nineteen "propositions." Beginning of At last, feeling strong enough for the final the civil war. arbitrament of war, he set up his standard at Aug. 22. Nottingham, and called on all good subjects to rally to the rescue of the throne. April 23. 1642. For nearly a year and a half his affairs went on not unprosperously, and England was in serious danger of being reduced to the condition of Spain. The Earl of Warwick, the Parliament's Admiral, got possession of the fleet with little difficulty, and kept the sea with good security against aid to the royal cause from the ports of France and Holland. But the Earl of Essex, general-in-chief for the Parliament, though a man of eminent probity and courage, had neither military genius nor diligent enterprise. His levies were not of a character to be opposed, on equal terms, to the dashing spirits that gathered round the royal standard. Nor was there wanting a suspicion, on the part of the more ardent patriots, that he did not desire a victory over the king more decisive than would suffice to discourage and humble him. The battle of Edgehill, fought against Essex by the king's nephew, the German Oct. 23. Prince Rupert, was claimed as a triumph by the royal party. After more than one abortive attempt at pacification, -in which Parliament abated little of the rigor of its demands, and not a few fluctuations of 1643. unimportant success and failure at York, at StafMay-July. ford, at Bradee Down, at Stratton, at Lansdown, at Roundway Down, and elsewhere, the king took Bristol, then the second most considerable city in the kingdom, by storm; and, according to a reasonable opinion of that day, as well as of times more recent, he might have occupied London and ended the contest, had he pushed on while the panic from the great disaster in the West was fresh. July 26. Sept. 20. Rupert, however, or the king, determined not to leave Gloucester in the rear. That city was held for the Parliament by a resolute and skilful officer. During the slow progress of the siege which followed, Parliament had time for new arrangements, till Gloucester, after being reduced to the last extremity, was at length relieved by a reinforcement, which reached Lord Essex, of militia from London; and the campaign closed with the battle of Newbury, contested stoutly with large forces, but with undecisive success. The great event of the season was the death of Hampden, from wounds received by him on Chalgrave field, at the head of a small force of cavalry, which he had suddenly raised to intercept Prince Rupert. When Pym died, six months later, the patriotic party had lost the guides who, by general consent, were most competent to con June 18-24. Dec. 8. duct it through the difficulties of the undertaking in which it was engaged. The progress of the royal arms in the West had been partially counterbalanced in the North by the successes of Sir Thomas Fairfax at Wakefield, and of Oliver Cromwell at Gainsborough; and the victory won at Atherton Moor by the royalist Earl of Newcastle over Lord Fairfax, and that of Cromwell and Sir Thomas Fairfax at Horncastle, alternately raised and depressed the trembling scales. When the armies went into winter quarters, Parliament applied itself with diligence to rousing again the spirit of the Scots. In the result of the negotiation, mainly due, as was thought, to the energy and address of Sir Henry Vane, the former Governor of Massachusetts, a "Solemn League and Covenant" was subscribed by the Convention of Scotland and by the English Parliament, both of which bodies also imposed it on all office-holders, civil, ecclesiastical, and military. And a second time a Scottish army crossed the border, now twenty-one thousand strong, and again under the command of the same experienced soldier of the Continental wars, recently ennobled by Charles as Earl of Leven. It was destined not to retrace its march till it should have obtained the disposal of the person of its king. 1644. June. Influence of these transNew Eng actions on land politics. When Of this course of events in the mother country the guides of New-England politics were no unconcerned observers; nor is it possible to get a correct view of some of their proceedings without attention to what was taking place about the same time on the other side of the water. Massachusetts, on the news of the appointment of a General Governor, spent a few hundreds of pounds to put her plank forts in order, the scheme and the means of resistance provoke a smile of surprise. But, among their observations on the state of things in the parent country, the Massachusetts fathers did not overlook the fact, that English ships would be manned from Puritan ports, those same ports, whose sailors not long before had refused to serve against the Huguenots of Rochelle,1 and not long after, when the civil war broke out, turned over the king's fleets to the Parliament's Admiral. And when they sent their bold denial of the last demand made in King Charles's reign for the transmission of the charter,2 it may be presumed that it was not without consideration of those pregnant transactions in Scotland, which for more than a year had fixed the attention of Englishmen in every region of the globe. The reader is aware, that, while some of the associates in the Massachusetts Company emigrated to this continent to carry out its plan, others, who had either never contemplated that step, or who had been led by the later course of events to reconsider it, acquired distinction at home in the civil or the military service during the struggles of the Long Parliament and the Commonwealth.3 How far the leaders in New England had active participation in those transactions which preceded and attended the overthrow of the hierarchy and the throne, is a question which does not fail to arrest the thoughts of the attentive observer of that period. There is manifest reason for supposing that, under circumstances so interesting to them in common, there would be free interchange of thought between the patriots on the opposite shores; and the intimate personal relations, which many of them had mutually sustained, converts this probability into a sort of certainty. It would be interesting in the highest degree to know the communications which, during the first three decades of years after the transfer of the 1 It has been noticed (see above, p. 266, note) that even the loyal Gorges, whose shadow so haunted the Massachusetts worthies, was one of those whose religious overpowered their 1 charter of Massachusetts, passed across the water between men allied by personal confidence and by a common devotion to the noblest objects. But, as yet, curiosity as to such intercourse has very partial gratification. In the alarm of the Restoration, there was a large destruction of papers in families connected with the resistance to the king; and, though treasures of this kind survived, for the most part they were presently lost sight of, and it is probable that many exist, which have not yet found their way again to the light.3 2 ters invited minster As Divines. A singular recognition of the relation of New England to the parent country appeared soon after New Engthe Long Parliament addressed itself to the ref- and minisormation of religious affairs. A letter from to the Westfive peers and thirty-four other persons (mem-sembly of bers of the Lower House and ministers) was 1642. received by Cotton of Boston, Hooker of Hart- September. ford, and Davenport of New Haven, urging them "to come over with all possible speed, all or any of them," to give their help "for the settling and composing the affairs of the church."4. The Act of Parlia- 1643. ment convoking the Westminster Assembly of June 12. Divines was not passed till the following summer. But the measure had been proposed several months 1641. before the invitations were despatched, and there December. 1 The Idem sentire de republicâ. 2 A friend who made the inquiry of a near relative of the Duke of Cleveland, the representative of Sir Henry Vane, informed me that Vane's papers of the period in question had not been preserved. I had similar information from the family of Lord Say and Sele, in respect to their ancestor; and less directly I was told the same thing respecting the archives of the houses of Warwick and Kensington, representing respectively Greville Lord Brooke, and Rich, Earl of Warwick. 3 Lady Whitelocke burned quantities of her husband's manuscripts. (Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, III. 386.) The recent publication of the Fairfax Papers inspires the hope that more of the same kind may be forthcoming. They were found, in 1822, at Leeds Castle, in an old chest, under a heap of Dutch tiles, which seemed to fill it. 4 Hutchinson (I. 111) has printed this letter, with the names of the signers. |