In less than three weeks, such predictions were signally falsified not only had the King found friends, but an army had started up from among the people at his call; a battle already had been fought and won, and now half the kingdom had arrayed itself against the power, the wealth, the resources, and the plausibilities of the Parliament. In the west, Sir Ralph Hopton and Sir Bevill Grenvil held Barnstaple, Pendennis, and Dartmouth, for the King; Ashburnham guarded Weymouth; and Lord Hertford still shewed a bold front in Somersetshire. The King occupied the Welsh borders as far as Bridgenorth, with all the Principality at his back, and a loyal region connecting Shrewsbury with the north. In Yorkshire, the Earl of Newcastle' was in prevailing force, though the Fairfaxes were there energetically striving for the Parliament. Scotland was quiet for the present, ruminating on future raids, and chewing the cud of the Covenant. 1 About this time the Prince received the following letter from the Earl of Newcastle: it betrays none of the jealous, if not angry feeling attributed to his lordship towards the Prince. Lord Newcastle was at this time employed in raising forces; amongst others, those "lambs," that so heroically distinguished themselves and fell at Marston Moor: THE EARL OF NEWCASTLE TO PRINCE RUPERT. "MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HIGHNESS, "I as heartily congratulate your safety as your victory,* for your person, sir, is to be valued above a kingdom, since you value * At Powick Bridge. Ireland rested from her slaughters, and yearned with her Roman Catholic heart towards any party that opposed the intolerant Roundheads. The Continental powers of Europe were well contented to look on, and contemplate our indomitable Islanders cutting their own throats. it so little in respect of your honour and love to his Majesty. Your Highness hath not brought us, but made us good fortune, and let us all see how weak the ordinance of two Houses of Parliament is. God prosper your Highness so to the end. "Your Highness' most faithful obliged servant, ' Newcastle, the 7th of October, 1642." VOL. I. F F 435 APPENDIX. A. LAUD. It is only just to the memory of this amiable, able, and unfortunate prelate, to speak of his private character, for the sake of the few who have not made themselves acquainted with it, or have only done so through the medium of his enemies. It seems also necessary to substantiate the often repelled, but not refuted charge I have brought against him. Laud's public administration and large share in producing the troubles of the king and kingdom, have been alluded to in the text (pp. 165, 166). In page 131 I have stated that he found the Church in a healthy state, and left it a prey to dissent, owing to the persecuting rigour with which he strove incessantly to force his peculiar views of church-discipline down the throats of those who could ill digest it. Lord Clarendon, the Archbishop's zealous and unflinching friend, says that the year 1633 (i. e. the period of Laud's accession to the Primacy) 66 was a period of great ease and tranquillity." . . "The general temper and humour of the kingdom were little inclined to the Papist, and less to the Puritan.” "The Church was not repined at, nor [was there] the least inclination to alter the government and discipline thereof, or to change the doctrine." I conceive that no assertion can be more decisive than this is; coming, as it does, from the most unexceptionable authority on this particular 'Clarendon's Rebellion, i. 162-3. point. When Laud's career was ended, the rampant condition of schism and dissent is notorious. Lord Clarendon also asserts, in the same page, that there was a jealous feeling concerning Popery, and anything "of innovation calculated to please the Papists." Laud was one among the many who had not perceived the growth of the power of Public Opinion, and probably if he had recognized that power, his nature would have delighted the more in braving it. The People were especially jealous of Signior Con, the Pope's nuncio, and of Price, the Superior of the Benedictine Convent; yet these two great politicians and statesmen were so great with the Bishop of Canterbury, that they had free access to him at all times." The fact of Laud's being offered a cardinal's hat argues that the Pope held the same opinion of him that the English people did, and he does not himself deny that he listened to the temptation; he only says (in his own diary) "there was something within him which would not let him accept the cardinal's hat, until Rome were other than she was." Doubtless there was much in that great Church that attracted him, but he seems only to have been guilty of want of tact, as regards the People, not of apostasy, as regarded his own Church. The discipline of Rome, the solemnity, the magnificence of her ritual, the eloquence of her liturgy, fascinated a mind that yearned to see his Church triumphant even in worldly show. But her doctrines never reached his heart: there is no more vehement or powerful declamation against Popery to be found in ecclesiastical literature than he has left us. He was even himself sensitive of some relics of Popery that seem harmless to us: when he saw so many wooden images of Christ at Oxford, he quaintly exclaimed: "Is not this the Carpenter's Son ?" When his death was compassed by as foul means as ever Jeffries employed to assassinate Somers' Tracts, p. 468. ' Ward's Diary, 1656. |