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THE MILITIA.

423

sion, less severe perhaps, but far more sweeping, than that which had rendered the star-chamber odious."

The further reflections of this judicious writer, almost the only one who evinces impartiality on this subject, and does not act the part of advocate to one side or the other, are most deserving of consideration. He thinks as we do, that the parliament, relying on the justice of their cause and the favour of the people, should have accepted the offer of the king respecting the militia. We will add, that we cannot divest our mind of a suspicion, that it was the secret design of Pym, Hampden, and some others to convert the monarchy into a republic, of which they hoped to be themselves the chiefs; for they were no religious zealots; their views were chiefly political.

To understand the question of the militia, it is necessary to recollect, that at this time there was no standing army in England. After the feudal army had gone out of use, the kings used to raise troops for their foreign wars by contracts with influential noblemen, and by giving very large pay. At the same time the old Saxon Fyrd continued under another form, and the men in each shire were required to keep arms and be ready to suppress insurrection and repel invasion. It was expressly provided by a statute of Edward I. that the militia should not be required to leave their own county except in these cases; but during the period of the Tudor despotism, this was little heeded; and a statute of Philip and Mary empowered the crown to levy men for service in war, and men were in consequence frequently pressed to serve in Ireland and elsewhere. When it was necessary to call out the forces of the counties, commissions of array were issued to particular persons for this purpose; but the sheriff was the person who usually disposed of the military force of his county. In Mary's reign a new officer named the lordlieutenant was appointed, usually a peer or influential commoner in the county, whose office was altogether military. It was his office to muster and train, when neces

sary, the able-bodied men of the county, and he was the commander of the militia, or trained-bands as they were named. Each county had its magazine of arms and ammunition, to be issued to the trained-bands when called into service.

As the institution of lords-lieutenant was a Tudor measure, it is quite certain that they had been always named by the crown; yet it was the right of appointing to this office that the commons now demanded; and sooner than yield to the king on this point, they plunged the nation into a civil war. "No one," says Hallam again, " can pretend that this was not an encroachment on his prerogative. It can only find a justification in the precarious condition, as the commons asserted it to be, of those liberties they had so recently obtained, in their just persuasion of the king's insincerity, and in the demonstrations he had already made of an intention to win back his authority at the sword's point. But it is equitable on the other hand to observe, that the commons had by no means greater reason to distrust the faith of Charles than he had to anticipate fresh assaults from them on the power he had inherited, on the form of religion which alone he thought lawful, on the counsellors who had served him most faithfully, and on the nearest of his domestic ties. If the right of self-defence could be urged by parliament for this demand of the militia, must we not admit that a similar plea was equally valid for the king's refusal? However arbitrary and violent the previous government of Charles may have been, however disputable his sincerity at present, it is vain to deny that he had made the most valuable concessions, and such as had cost him very dear. It was not unreasonable for the king to pause at the critical moment which was to make all future denial nugatory, and inquire whether the prevailing majority designed to leave him what they had not taken away."

CHAPTER VII.

CHARLES I. (Continued).

1642-1644.

Gates of Hull shut against Charles.-Manifestoes on both sides.-Raising of money and troops.-Royal standard raised at Nottingham.—Battle of Edgehill.-Affair at Brentford.-Treaty at Oxford.-Arrival of the queen.-Waller's plot.-Battles of Lansdown and Roundway-down.-Death and character of Hampden.-Surrender of Bristol.-Siege of Gloucester.-Battle of Newbury.—Ill conduct of the king.—Cessation with the Irish rebels.-Death and character of Pym.-Oxford parliament.-Progress of the war.-Battle of Cropredy-bridge.-Battle of Marston-moor.

THE nobility and gentry of York and the adjoining counties now resorted to the king with ardent expressions of sympathy and attachment. He had in fact succeeded in putting the parliament in the wrong, and men were become indignant at beholding the continued efforts (the secret motives of which they were ignorant of) for stripping the sovereign of all his powers and prerogatives. Many of the peers now came to him from London, and in the paper war of declarations and so forth, carried on between him and the parliament, his manifestoes, prepared by Hyde, were as superior to theirs in argument as in eloquence. His tone now became more elevated; there was an end of concession, he insisted on his rights; and in the opinion of many, he required nothing to which his claims were not as well founded as any private man's right to his lands and

tenements.

The pernicious influence of the queen, though absent, still operated. In his uxoriousness, Charles thought himself bound, regardless of consequences, to fulfil any unwary promise which she had drawn from him, and he now, in compliance with her will, and in opposition to the opinion of his best advisers, required the earls of Essex and Hol

land to resign the staff and key of their offices. By this he only gratified spleen, and he lost the advantage of the restraint which honour might have imposed on the subsequent conduct of these noblemen.

The earl of Northumberland, lord admiral, being delicate in health, the commons required that he should appoint the earl of Warwick to command for a year in his stead; the king, when this arrangement was notified to him, wrote expressing his desire that sir John Pennington should be appointed. The parliament persisted, and Warwick took the command of the fleet without the king's consent. A petition was then forwarded that the magazine might be removed from Hull to London. This was of course refused, for to obtain possession of it was a principal cause of the king's coming to the north. He sent (Apr. 8) a message to the houses, declaring his intention to go in person to suppress the rebellion in Ireland, for which purpose he would raise a guard of two thousand foot and two hundred horse in the counties about West Chester, to be armed from the magazine at Hull. The reply of the parliament to this message was a positive refusal of their consent, and orders were sent to Hotham to transmit the magazine to London. The king, who regarded the magazine as his private property, resolved to go forthwith and take possession of it. He therefore (22nd,) sent the young duke of York with some attendants to Hull, where they were received with all due respect by Hotham, and the next morning he rode thither himself with two or three hundred of his servants and of the gentlemen of the county; and when he came near the town, he sent word to the governor that he was coming to dine with him. Hotham, an irresolute man, was in great perplexity, but the magistrates and officers persuaded him not to admit the king. Charles therefore found the bridges up, the gates shut, and the walls manned. Hotham appeared on the walls, and on his knees with many professions of duty declined to admit him for fear of offending the parliament. The king, find

1642.]

HOSTILE MANIFESTOES.

427

ing all his efforts vain, proclaimed Hotham a traitor, and retired deeply mortified to Beverley. The duke of York and his retinue were dismissed in safety. In reply to the complaints of the king, the parliament justified the conduct of Hotham, and the ordnance and ammunition in Hull were shortly afterwards removed to London.

The parliament now issued orders to the lords-lieutenant to put their ordinance* respecting the militia into execution; the king on the other hand forbade obedience to it, and issued commissions of array. While both sides were raising and disciplining men, the appeal to the people by means of declarations and manifestoes was kept up, and messages and answers were going and coming between York and London. On the 2nd of June the parliament sent their ultimatum in a petition containing nineteen articles, which, as Hallam well observes, "went to abrogate in spirit the whole existing constitution," for they required that the king should consent to all the changes in church and state which they had proposed; that all offices of every kind should be given to none but those of whom they approved, i. e. whom they should appoint; that the laws against recusants should be put in force, and their children be taken from them to be educated by protestants, etc. etc. If he consented to these demands, they promised to secure him an abundant revenue. The king made an indignant reply, "protesting that if he were both vanquished and a prisoner, in worse condition than any the most unfortunate of his predecessors had ever been reduced unto, he would never stoop so low as to grant those demands, and to make himself of a king of England a duke of Venicet."

The majority of the peers and a great number of the commons were now with the king at York, for which nine

* An ordinance was a measure which had passed the two houses, but not having had the royal assent could not be called an act of parliament, though it was enforced as if it were such.

† May, 129.