new life of the future into the narrow mould of which alone it approves. It was not so with the Long Parliament in 1642. It was resolved to choose for the nation the Church-forms and the Church-doctrine which it thought best. In all matters of the highest moment England was to take its ply from Parliament, and not Parliament from England. Pym and his comrades claimed the rights of representation without understanding its duties.

Nor was this all. Even if it could be assumed that the ecclesiastical policy of Pym's supporters was entirely right, it was inevitable that, in the clash of authorities, Parliament should assume many functions which it could not permanently exercise without detriment to the nation. Parliament had come slowly and reluctantly to the conclusion that the government of England could not safely be left in Charles's hands. Charles could not be allowed to use the executive powers which he had hitherto possessed to introduce foreign troops into an English seaport, and with their help to make himself master of the country. Yet it was impossible that those executive powers could remain in abeyance. Even when public excitement is at the lowest ebb, it is absolutely necessary that there shall be some government to direct the course of public action. Recent experience has taught us that the wisest course would have been the dethronement of Charles and the immediate instalment of a new sovereign. The Long Parliament could not as yet venture on such a step. Public opinion amongst its own members as well as in the nation would have scouted the idea as treacherous and disloyal, and its own anxiety to innovate as little as possible led it to the greatest and most disastrous of innovations. The Houses took the executive authority into their own hands, and assumed functions for which a representative assembly is by its very nature unfitted. Nothing could come of it but hasty and violent action. Rewards and punishments would be distributed according to the temper of the majority. The majesty of the law would be overwhelmed in the attempt to uphold it. In the midst of the struggles of parties and factions the will of the many would be substituted for the will of one.

better to be

hoped from

It was this which was sending so many of the English gentry on the road to York. They felt instinctively that it was nt a reign of liberty which was offered them at Westminster. Nothing Yet what better thing could they expect from Charles? What possible political institutions could Charles. be founded on his dry legality, on his persistent claim to stop all legislation to which his personal assent was not given, on his determination to ignore the rights of con science in all who differed from himself? What better thing, we may even ask, could these Royalists expect from themselves? At their worst, they were rebels against the strict and stern morality of Puritanism. At their best, they were upholders of the culture of the Renaissance in religion and in life, and in following after culture, as often happens, they had lost that touch of the spiritual needs of the masses without which culture loses its power as a social force. The chasm which had been opened in the sixteenth century was widened in the seventeenth into a yawning gulf. The mind of the modern enquirer seeking for indications of peace turns bewildered from Westminster to York, and back again from York to Westminster. Nowhere is to be seen the large-hearted genius which pierces to the heart of a situation, and holds aloft the principle which reconciles instead of the principle which separates. The nation, as well as its Parliament, has broken asunder, and sad and evil are the days that are before it. Yet the spectacle, miserable as it is, is not one to be turned from with loathing. "If the heart be right," said Raleigh on the scaffold, "what matter how the head lie?" With most who took opposite sides now, the heart was right. Cavalier and Roundhead were taking sides neither in thoughtlessness nor in anger. Each saw the fault in his brother; though he could not discern his own.

Even by this time it was not absolutely certain that the King would find a party to defend him. On June 3, whilst Jure 3. the Nineteen Propositions were on their way from The meeting London, the freeholders and farmers of Yorkshire met, at the King's bidding, on Heyworth Moor, close The number of those who flocked to the rendezvous

at Heyworth

Moor.

to York.

was variously calculated at from 40,000 to 80,000. It was too great a number to come to any ascertained decision. Copies of an appeal made by Charles to his subjects' loyalty were read aloud in different parts of the moor. The King, followed by his new guard, rode about to show himself to his subjects. Once Sir Thomas Fairfax, the eldest son of that Lord Fairfax who was member for the county and one of the Parliamentary commissioners, pressed near enough to offer a petition on the Parliamentary side. Charles refused to receive it, though Fairfax laid it on the pommel of his saddle. Fairfax was hustled and insulted by the King's attendants. In so large a crowd no order could be kept, and no attempt was made to ascertain its real feeling. Shouts were raised for the King from time to time, but no definite proposition was made, and no definite engagement given. Each party interpreted the temper of the meeting according to its own sympathies. Parliamentarians thought that the absence of any distinct offer to support the King was evidence that the popular feeling was against him. Royalists attributed this result merely to defective organisation, and asserted that if a Royalist petition were circulated it would be subscribed by as many hands as there were heads at the meeting. Satisfactory news, too, arrived from Wales, and it was understood that the Principality was prepared to rise at a moment's warning.1

June 6.

distinctly

claimed' by

At Westminster each successive step taken by the King was met by a fresh act of defiance. On June 6 Charles's prohibition of the musters of the militia was answered by Sovereignty a declaration in which sovereignty was claimed by Parliament even more distinctly than before. If the Parliament. King, they asserted, chose to allow armed bands to be collected for the breach of the peace, it was the duty of the Houses to interfere. "What they do herein hath the starp of Royal authority, although His Majesty, seduced by evil counsel, do in his own person oppose or interrupt the same; for the King's supreme and royal pleasure is exercised and declared in this high court of law and counsel, after a more eminent and

1 Boynton to Constable, June 4. Nicholas to Roe, June 8, S. P. Dom.

obligatory manner than it can be by personal act or resolution of his own." 1

From such a declaration there was no drawing back. What was now done, was done, as the Houses firmly believed, in their self-defence. "Peace and our liberties," wrote one of the most moderate and unambitious members of the House, "are the only things we aim at. Till we have peace, I am sure we can enjoy no liberties, and without our liberties, I shall not heartily desire peace.” 2

On the 9th an ordinance was passed calling on everyone who was willing to assist his suffering country to bring in money, plate, or horses for its service.3 Lords and Commons liberally responded to the appeal, though there were

June 9. Ordinance for bringing in money, plate, and horses.

June 10.

on the Lords and Com

mons.

many still on the benches of the Lower House who refused to answer to the call made individually to them in the House. Constitutional purists, like D'Ewes, Personal call might well regret that in thus demanding of each man a declaration of his intention, 'the very liberty and freedom of the House suffered.'5 The time for such scruples had passed. Men were taking sides in a civil war, not carrying on a constitutional debate. More to the purpose was the sharp answer of Killigrew, a Royalist member who still remained at Westminster. "If there be occasion," he said, "I will provide a good horse and a good sword, and I make no question but I shall find a good cause.” 6 Such words were not of peaceful omen. On the 11th, news arrived more threatening still. It was now known that the Queen had been selling or pawning jewels in AmAmsterdam. sterdam, and had purchased considerable stores of munitions of war for the service of the King."

June 11. Arms pre pared at

1 L. J. v. 112.

2 Sir R. Verney to Lady Barrymore, June 9, Verney MSS.

3 L. J. v. 121.

According to Nicholas 70 subscribed, 33 craved time for consideration, 50 refused. Nicholas to Roe, June 15, S. P. Dom.

5 D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxiii. fol.

6 Clarendon, v. 338.

* L. J. v. 126.

Henrietta Maria, 77,

157.

The Queen to the King, June 4'

81.

The King's

prohibition of the execution of the Militia Ordinance

without effect.

On the very day on which this information was circulated in London, a forward step was taken at York. It was there resolved to meet organisation by organisation. Charles had indeed already issued a proclamation prohibiting the execution of the Militia Ordinance; but that prohibition had produced no effect whatever to the south of the Humber. In London, indeed, the Lord Mayor was so good a Royalist as to order the proclamation containing the prohibition to be publicly read in the City. But even in Lincolnshire, where Royalism was strong amongst the gentry, Lord Willoughby had succeeded in inducing the trained bands of the county to accept the Parliamentary Ordinance. On the 11th, therefore, Charles determined to take more active measures, and by issuing commissions of array to direct the trained bands to place themselves at the disposal of officers appointed by himself. Parliament indeed questioned the legality of these commissions, and a new controversy sprang up as bitter and as lengthy as that which had raged over Hotham's right to occupy Hull.1

The commissions of

array.

Such controversy was of no practical importance whatever. The main question for the moment was whether the King would succeed in carrying his own party with him. Again and again, in the course of the past year, he had alienated his friends by engaging in plots with foreign powers or with discontented soldiers. If he would be at the head of a great party in England, he must rely upon that party alone. He must share its feelings and its prejudices. Yet even the Lords Feeling of the Lords at and gentry who had joined the King at York were by York. no means so active in his service as he could have wished. They were weary of Pym's dictation, and they were resolved not to submit their necks to the Puritan yoke; but they had no wish to provoke a civil war, and with all their hearts they detested those intrigues with the Irish Catholics and with foreign powers, the existence of which they could hardly help suspecting. If Charles was not to be isolated as he had been in 1640, he must throw himself, as far as his nature per1 Rushworth, iv. 655.