jects of this kingdom, and taken, slain, and imprisoned great numbers of them." In the proclamation issued by the king at their desire (Jan. 1, 1642), it is asserted that the rebels had "robbed and spoiled many thousands of our good subjects of the British nation, and Protestants of their goods to great values, massacred multitudes of them," &c. Whitelock also states, that "the miserable Englishmen, women, and children, whom the rebels took, were savagely butchered by them."

We know not what Dr. Lingard's definition of a massacre may be, but we should be inclined to apply the term to proceedings like those alluded to.

C, page 298.

BATTLE OF EDGEHILL.

In order not to break the continuity of the narrative, we have reserved the following anecdotes and remarks for this place.

Lindsey," said Sir Philip Warwick, "made a most excellent, pious, short, and soldierly prayer; for he lifted up his hands and eyes to heaven, saying, Oh Lord! thou knowest how busy I must be this day; if I forget thee, do not thou forget me.' with that he rose up, crying, March on, boys!""

And

Clarendon (Life, i., 160) tells us that Sir Edmund Verney, who fell in this battle, said to him about two months before, "For my part, I do not like the quarrel, and do heartily wish that the king would yield, and consent to what they desire; so that my conscience is only concerned in honour and in gratitude to follow my master. I have eaten his bread, and served him near thirty years, and will not do so base a thing as to forsake him; and choose rather to lose my life (which I am sure I shall do) to preserve and defend those things which are against my conscience to preserve and defend; for I will deal freely with you, I have no reverence for the bishops for whom this quarrel subsists." That these sentiments were shared by many honourable men, is clear from the Earl of Sunderland's letter in the Sidney Papers (ii., 667), and the Diary of Sir Henry Slingsby. Nothing can be more unjust than to represent, as is commonly done, the whole body of the royalists as a godless, profane, dissolute crew.

Ludlow (i., 42) gives the following account of the recovery of the royal standard: "I saw," said he, "Lieut. Col. Middleton, then a reformado in our army, displaying the king's standard, which he had taken. But a party of horse coming on us, we were obliged to retire with our standard; and, having brought it to the Earl of Essex, he delivered it to the custody of one Mr. Chambers, his secretary, from whom it was taken by one Captain Smith, who, with two more, disguising themselves with orangecoloured scarfs (the Earl of Essex's colours), and pretending it unfit that a penman should have the honour to carry the standard, took it from him and rode with it to the king, for which action he was knighted."

It is very doubtful what was the real number of the slain in this battle. May (p. 172) says, that in the speeches made, and books printed by both parties, "there is no consent at all concerning the number of men slain, but so great a discrepancy as it is almost a shame to insert into a history." Clarendon, Whitelock, and most others, give the number in the text, but the Duke of York, who, though a boy, was present, says (Life of James II., i., 17) that, according to the best information, "there was not above 1500 bodies of both parties remaining on the field ;" and Gough, in his additions to Camden's Britannia (ii., 333), without naming his authority, says, "by a survey made by Mr. Fisher, vicar of Keinton, by order of the Earl of Essex, the number of the slain was found not to be much above 1300." Lingard says, also naming no authority, that "the clergyman of the place, who superintended the burial of the dead, reduces it to about 1200 men Dugdale, a contemporary, makes the number still lower. His words are (Short View, p. 109)," Upon strict inquiry from the adjacent inhabitants who buried the bodies, and took particular notice of the distinct numbers put into each grave, it appears that there were not 1000 complete there interred."

Clarendon asserts that two thirds of the slain were on the parliament side. May says, "Surely, by the best account, there were more slain on the king's side than the other;" and Lord Wharton assured the parliament that the loss on their side did not exceed three hundred men (Journ., v., 423).

We may here observe, that it is almost impossible to get a clear idea of the exact manner in which any battle was fought in this war, or a correct estimate of the number of men slain. Neither party had any scruple about making false reports; and the parliamentary generals hardly ever owned to any but the most trifling losses, while they took care to magnify those of the enemy. Whitelock observes on a letter of the Earl of Essex, giving a very partial account of the surrender at Lostwithiel, in 1644: "By this and several other letters, we may observe how the parliament of ficers sought to lessen this defeat received by them, and to conceal the full truth thereof from the parliament; which is usual with some to lessen their defeats and to enlarge their victories."

Warburton (Clarendon, vii., 563) says, "In the year 1741, or thereabouts, I had a conversation with the Duke of Argyle and Lord Cobham (both soldiers) concerning the conduct of Essex and the king after the battle of Edgehill. They said, Essex, instead of retiring to Coventry, should either have pushed the king or attended him closely; that, since he neglected that, and went back so far north, the king should have marched hastily to London, and ended the war at a blow; that, as Lord Clarendon represents it, the conduct of both is incomprehensible. I think the matter very clear: Essex's views and principles would not suffer him to destroy the king, because the constitution would fall with him, and this he loved... ... On the other hand, the king's best friends dreaded his ending the war by conquest, as knowing his VOL. III.-E E

despotic disposition. And these dissuaded the marching up to London, which Lord Clarendon tells us was debated in council." These just remarks contain the solution of many difficulties in the military history of those times.

66

D, page 315.

EVILS OF THE CIVIL WAR.

Though, as we have asserted, this civil contest was freer from atrocities than any other, it must not be supposed that none such occurred. The following extracts from May, Clarendon, and Whitelock, will give some idea of the miseries endured by the people from the violence of the soldiery on both sides at this time: Many towns and villages he (Rupert) plundered, that is to say, robbed (for at that time first was the word plunder used in England, being born in Germany, when that stately country was so miserably wasted and pillaged by foreign armies), and committed other outrages upon those who stood affected to the parliament, executing some, and hanging up servants at their masters' doors for not discovering of their masters."-May, 160. A common name for Prince Rupert, i. e. Robert, was Prince Robber.

Of Goring, Clarendon says (v. 138): "So that he was forced to retire to Salisbury, where his horse committed such horrid outrages and barbarities as they had done in Hampshire, without distinction of friends or foes; so that those parts which before were well-devoted to the king, worried by oppression, wished for the access of any forces to redeem them." He elsewhere expresses himself to the same effect.

According to the same authority (v. 203), the commissioners of Cornwall complained against Sir Richard Greenvil," that he had committed very many honest substantial men, and all the constables of the east part of the county, to Lydford prison in Devonshire, for no offence, but to compel them to ransom themselves for money; and that his troopers had committed such outrages in the county that they had been compelled in open sessions to declare against him, and to authorize the county, in case he should send his troops in such manner, to rise and beat them out." This, the historian observes, "was no other than a denouncing war against Greenvil." Yet he says that the discipline which Greenvil exercised over his men at Plymouth "had raised him much credit among the country people, who had lived long under the license of Prince Maurice." Whence we may infer what the conduct of that prince had been.

Whitelock is a much honester writer than Clarendon; and he does not conceal, like him, the faults of his own party. It might therefore seem, though such was not the case, that the license was greater on the side of the parliament.

He says (p. 114), "The parliament's forces quartered at Reading, Abington, and Henley, where the rude soldiers did great mischief to friends as well as enemies in their houses, and more in

their woods; but such insolencies and mischiefs must be expected from this brood of men, or, rather, brutish soldiers, who know no difference between friends and foes, but all is plunder that they can fasten their hands upon." Again (p. 125), "A petition from Bedfordshire complains of the unruliness of the soldiers, their taking horses in markets from the country people, and then making them to redeem them again for money. The like from Sussex and Bucks, and complaining of the abusing of women and murdering of men." "These," he observes, "were the fruits of civil war, robberies, ravishings, and innumerable wicked actions committed by the barbarous soldiers, to the unspeakable misery of the poor country." Again (p. 131), "The committee reported several murders and other cruelties committed by some of the parliament's soldiers. Some of the officers grew insufferably dissolute and insolent, and their soldiers followed the example of their commanders."

The New Model, however, and, still more, the termination of the war in 1645, put an end to these enormities.

We may add Mrs. Hutchinson's account of Sir John Gell and his

men:

"About this time Sir John Gell, a Derbyshire gentleman, who had been sheriff of the county at that time when the illegal tax of ship-money was exacted, and so violent in the prosecution of it, that he starved Sir John Stanhope's cattle in the pound, and would not suffer any one to relieve them there, because that worthy gentleman stood out against that unjust payment, and who had, by many aggravating circumstances, not only concerning his prosecution of Sir John Stanhope, but others, so highly misdemeaned himself, that he looked for punishment from the parliament; to prevent it, very early put himself into their service, and, after the king was gone out of these countries, prevented the cavalier gentry from seizing the town of Derby, and fortified it, and raised a regiment of foot. These were good, stout fighting men, but the most licentious, ungovernable wretches that belonged to the parliament. He himself, no man knows for what reason he chose that side, for he had not understanding enough to judge the equity of the cause, nor piety or holiness, being a foul adulterer all that time he served the parliament, and so unjust that, without any remorse, he suffered his men indifferently to plunder both honest men and cavaliers. This man kept the Diurnal-makers in pension, so that whatever was done in the neighbouring counties against the enemy was attributed to him, and thus he hath indirectly [i. e., by improper means] purchased himself a name in story which he never merited, who was a very bad man, to sum up all in that word, yet an instrument of service to the parliament in those parts."-Life of Col. Hutchinson, p. 105.

This lady's account of Mr. Millington, Mr. Salisbury, Colonel Chadwick, Captain White, Dr. Plumtre, and the feuds in Nottingham, is also very curious as a picture of the manners of the time. "Neither was it Colonel Hutchinson's case only," she ob

serves (p. 250); "almost all the parliament garrison were infested and disturbed with like factious little people, insomuch that many worthy gentlemen were wearied out of their commands, and opprest by a certain sort [set] of mean people in the house, whom, to distinguish from the more honourable gentlemen, they called Worsted-stocking men.”

END OF VOL. III