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votes; and riotous mobs were excited to enforce it. The officers of the army had addressed the crown, and professed their loyalty and attachment, which was made a pretence by the Commons for desiring a guard, which was granted, and a strong police force was appointed to protect both Houses of parliament. This, however, was soon voted a breach of privilege; for this species of guard prevented that intercommunion with the rabble which was now become necessary for their support, and who, on the removal of the police, again surrounded the House, with a cry of No bishops! no prelacy! and riotously prevented the bishops from taking their seats in the upper House. The bishops protested against this interruption as a most violent breach of the privileges of the House of Lords, and that all the proceedings during their forced absence should be null in law. This factious proceeding having been promoted chiefly by lord Kimbolton and five members of the House of Commons, the king exhibited articles of high treason against them, and there was sufficient guilt to have hanged them; but the king's unfortunate propensity to clemency, and his tenderness for the privileges of parliament, made him send a messenger to the House, with a demand that they might be delivered up. Instead of complying, however, the Commons passed a resolution," that if any person whatsoever should offer to arrest or detain any member of that House, without first acquainting that house therewith, and receiving further orders from thence, it should be lawful to such member to stand upon his guard and make resistance, and for any person to assist him." Here, then, is high treason and rebellion made lawful by a vote of the House of Commons! The king was unfortunately advised by lord Digby to compromise his dignity by going to the house the next day, and demanding the members in person. Having received previous notice of this step, the house sent away their guilty members; and when the king came they just heard his demand with sullen countenances, but with no responsive attention. On his departure they adjourned for a few days, and ordered a grand committee of the members to meet in Merchant-Tailors' Hall, where they laid the train of their future rebellious courses.

When the house met again, they voted the king's visit to the house a high breach of the privilege and freedom of parliament, and that for the future they could not venture to sit without a sufficient guard in whom they could confide. Even the king could perceive that the object of this guard was to coerce him by arms; and the insolence of the mob having now become intolerable, he retired to Hampton Court. The guard

own.

having once been proposed, petitions were presented praying that the command of the militia might be vested in the parliament; which the Commons, indeed, were now determined to have, either by law or force. They knew that the latter method would have been high treason and rebellion; and therefore they adopted the specious plea of self-defence. They alleged that the king had levied war on his parliament, and they impeached lord Digby of high treason before the peers, for having dined with a few military officers at Kingston-onThames; and who, after dinner, waited on the king at Hampton Court, which they construed into levying war against the parliament. After this flimsy excuse, they proceeded with a bolder hand to ravish all power, and every act of sovereignty, from the king. They placed a new lieutenant in the Tower, and nominated the governors of all the forts in England. The king could not be persuaded to pass the militia bill; and therefore they took the command of that body by an ordinance of their After the king had disbanded his army, the whole of his artillery, arms, and ammunition, were deposited in Hull, which was then a fortified town. The Commons now sent sir John Hotham, one of their members, to take possession of Hull; and soon after they seized on the navy. Being now stripped of almost the whole sovereignty, and fearing lest the parliament should next attack his person, he retired into the north, and raised a troop of guards, under the command of the prince of Wales, for his personal security. The Commons voted this precautionary act a great cause of terror to the people and of jealousy to the parliament, and sent an address to the king to disband the troop; and at the same time they ordered the stores in Hull to be removed by sea to London, to prevent the king from getting possession of them, and to be more at their own disposal. In short, we may say with Hallam, in his Constitutional History," that when Hotham, by their command, shut the gates of Hull against his sovereign, and when the militia was called out in different counties by an ordinance of the two houses, both which preceded by several weeks any levying of forces for the king,-the bonds of our constitutional law were, by them and their servants, snapped asunder; and it would be mere pedantry and chicane of political casuistry to inquire, even if the fact could be better ascertained, whether, at Edgehill, or in the minor skirmishes that preceded, the first carbine was discharged by a cavalier or a roundhead. The aggressor in a war is not the first who uses force, but the first who renders force necessary."

Religion was merely the pretence for the origin of the

rebellion in Scotland, and which he noble leaders in it assumed to gain the ministers to their side; and had the king been served by honest men, and had he himself acted with more firmness and vigour, and not have allowed his own good sense to be disfigured by deference to persons of inferior capacities to his own, the discontents of the nobility had never gone further than words. Their fierce fanatical hatred of the king was inflamed by the dark and sanguinary preachers of the Covenant which was a perpetual bond of rebellion, who derived their theology from a perverted study of the Old Testament kings and prophets, that were the ministers of divine wrath, and by divine appointment, on the wicked and unrepentant. In all ages religion has ever been made a cloak to cover other and baser motives for sedition and rebellion, which are sins at utter variance with religion. "For the present troubles in Scotland, novations in religion are so far from being known to be the true cause, as that it is manifest to any man that will look upon it with a single eye, that temporal discontents, and several ambitions of the great men which had been long a working, were the true cause of these troubles; and that religion was called in upon the bye, to gain the clergy, and by them the multitude1." The king was firmly attached to the church of England, and never entertained the most remote intention of undermining it himself, or of suffering others to extirpate it. "For," says he," we call God to record, before whom we stand, that it is, and always hath been, our heart's desire to be found worthy of that title, which we account the most glorious in all our crown, DEFENDER of the Faith; neither shall we ever give way to the authorising of any thing whereby any innovation may steal or creep into the church, but preserve that unity of doctrine and discipline established in the time of Queen Elizabeth, whereby the church of England hath stood and flourished ever since. And as we were careful to make up all breaches and rents in religion at home, so did we, by our proclamation and commandment for the execution of laws against priests and popish recusants, fortify all ways and approaches against that foreign enemy; which, if it have not succeeded according to our intention, we must lay the fault where it is, in the subordinate officers and ministers in the country, by whose remissness jesuits and priests escape without apprehension, and recusants from those convictions and penalties which the laws and our commandments would I ave inflicted on them. For we do profess that, as it is our

VOL. II.

Laud's Troubles and Trial, p. 87.
I

duty, so it shall be our care, to command and direct well; but it is the part of others to perform the ministerial office. And when we have done our office we shall account ourself, and all charitable men will account us, innocent both to God and men; and those that are negligent we will esteem as culpable both to God and us; and therefore will expect that hereafter they give us a better account. And as we have been careful for the settling of religion and quieting in the church, so we are not unmindful of the preservation of the just and ancient liberties of our subjects, which are secured to them by our gracious answer to the petition in parliament, having not since that time done any act whereby to infringe them; but our care is, and hereafter shall be, to keep them entire and inviolable as we would do our own right and sovereignty, having for that purpose enrolled the petition and answer in our courts of justice 1."

1 Eikon Basilike, ii. 17-18.

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CHAPTER XVIII.

GENERAL ASSEMBLIES.

PRESBYTERY AND THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT.

THE GRAND REBELLION.

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1641.-Meeting of the estates-adjournments.-Traquair prosecuted.—Montrose's band.-A declaration of grievances.-Covenanters denounce archbishop Laud-his refutation—his impeachment.-Montrose suspected. Speech of Argyle.-Montrose sent to the Castle.-A brotherly assistance from the Long Parliament-and meeting of the Assembly at St. Andrews.-King's letter.-Translation of the Assembly to Edinburgh.-Henderson moderator.Acts.-Purgation of the universities.-Assembly's opinion asked of Montrose's Band.-Letter from the English puritans.-Assembly's answer. - Kirk of Campvere.-Meeting of parliament.-Attempt to introduce the ministers into parliament.-King's friends arrested.-Traquair.-King leaves London for Edinburgh-and presides in parliament-his speech-his first fatal concession. -Loudon made chancellor.-Grant to St. Andrews.-A fast.-The bishop of Moray, Montrose, and others, discharged from prison.-Rising of parliament. -Promotions in the peerage.-Parliament prorogued. The king's departure for London. - Political movements. - Carnwath.-A plot pretended-The bench purged.-Conservators of the peace.-The king's concessions, and their effects.-Promotions.-Church property distributed.-Discontent of the ministers.-Acts of the Glasgow Assembly ratified.--The preferments unjustifiable.-Irish rebellion. — Coincidence between the popish and covenanting rebels.-Brief notices of the church of Ireland.-James' plantation of Ulster. -Popish schism.-Discontent of the native Irish.-State of the church in Ireland.-Earl of Strafford-state of the church in his time.-Scottish episcopal clergy seek shelter in Ireland.-State of popery in Ireland.-Commencement of the rebellion.-Lords justices warned of their danger.-Sir Phelim O'Neale chief of the insurrection.-The massacre.-The activity of the popish priests their cruelties.-Many perished of cold and hunger.-Papists encouraged by the success of the covenanters.-Eikon Basilike.-Ulterior views of the covenanters.-Movements of the women.-Ultimate understanding betwixt the covenanters and the puritans.-Lauderdale and Dumfermline's ingratitude. --Resolution to impose the covenant on England.—Inconsistency of the Covenanters.-A revolution.-Lay elders.

1641.

The cloud which had arisen in the North, and was at first no bigger than a man's hand, and which, with proper

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