preacher--who, in connection with a lectureship at St. Paul's, held other Church preferment. To him and his brother lecturers may be ascribed the inspiration of much intense public feeling against prelatical assumptions, and against Episcopacy itself,1 out of which arose an extraordinary memorial, which has attained no small notoriety under the name of the Root and Branch petition.

This petition complained that the offices and jurisdictions of archbishops were the same as in the papal community, "little change thereof being made, except only the head from whence it was derived;" that there was great conformity of the English Church to the Church of Rome in vestures, postures, ceremonies, and administrations; that the liturgy, for the most part, is framed out of the Romish Breviary, Ritual, and the Mass Book; and that the forms of ordination and consecration were drawn from the Romish pontifical.2 Whoever prepared this document, it was soon submitted to Mr. Bagshawe, of the Inner Temple, member for Southwark, who had obtained great popularity by his lectures against the temporalities of bishops-lectures which brought on him the displeasure of Laud. But Bagshawe, though zealous for the reform of Episcopacy, did not desire to see it abolished. He therefore declined to take charge of the petition, when Mr. John White, his fellow-burgess for Southwark-afterwards the famous chairman of the committee for scandalous ministers-arranged its delivery to the Commons, not however by his own hands, but through Alderman Pennington, a citizen well known for his extreme dislike to the Episcopal Bench.3

1 Dugdale's Troubles in England, 36, 62, 65.

Wood's Athena Oxonienses, ii. 347.

2 Parl. Hist., ii. 674.

3

Bagshawe's own account, in Hanbury's Memorials, ii. 141.

A still more effective agency on the Presbyterian side appeared in London at the same time.

Scotland had silently fostered the Presbyterianism of England for many years. Head quarters for that polity had been there established. In the neighbourhood of the Highlands, synods found even a kindlier soil and a more congenial climate than under the shadow of the Alps. True to its old French sympathies, Scotland did not follow the example of reformation set in England or in Germany; it eschewed Saxon examples, and adopted that form of Protestantism which had been embraced by such of the Gallic nation as had seceded from Rome, and which bore the impress of the piety and genius of one of the most illustrious sons of France. Edinburgh, during the ministry of Knox, saw as complete a work accomplished as Geneva had witnessed during the ministry of Calvin. Episcopacy was thoroughly rooted out, and the attempts under Charles I. to replant it only exasperated the husbandmen of the vineyard, and made them love the more what they counted "trees of the Lord's right hand planting." Presbyterianism became doubly dear to Scotchmen when the grandson of Mary sought to destroy that, which, in the days of his grandmother, their forefathers had cultivated with toil and tears. To make the matter worse, when Charles went to Scotland in 1633, and took with him Laud, then Bishop of London, everything seemed to be done which was likely to arouse Scotch prejudices against episcopal order and the English liturgy. Instead of reducing the Anglican ceremonies to as simple a form as possible, the most elaborate pomp of worship appeared in Holyrood Chapel. The Dreadnought, a good ship, well victualled, "appointed to guard the narrow seas, was engaged to transport from Tilbury Hope to the Firth of Forth, twenty-six musical gentlemen of the Royal

Chapel at Whitehall, with their goods and paraphernalia to perform the cathedral service, so as to impress the Presbyterians of Edinburgh. A more thorough mistake could not have been made in a city where even the sight of a surplice and the reading of the common prayer, a few years afterwards, occasioned the world-known episode of Jenny Geddes and her wonderful Folding Stool."

66

The attempt to impose Episcopacy and its associations on Presbyterian Scotland provoked a Covenant war, and roused a determination in the hearts of her sons to carry Presbyterianism over the border, and to make the two countries one pure Kirk. How the strong Presbyterianism on the other side the Tweed re-inforced what was comparatively weak at first on this side the border,-how the Scotch made the system amongst Englishmen what it became,-how, like a loadstone, it attracted and brought together the scattered particles of Presbyterian sentiments throughout England,-how the Church of the North greatly augmented the mass of Puritanism in the South, and welded it for a while into form somewhat like its own, will appear as this narrative proceeds.

Meanwhile some passing notice must be taken of the enthusiasm of the Scotch army in support of Presbyterianism, and it cannot better be done than in the words of a worthy minister who visited the camp, and whose naïve and graphic notes on other subjects, we shall have frequent occasion to use.

"It would have done you good," the writer says, "to have cast your eyes athwart our brave and rich hill as oft as I did, with great contentment and joy; for I (quoth the wren) was there among the rest, being chosen preacher by the gentlemen of our Shyre, who came late with my

1 See Cal. Dom., 1633-4, p. 33 et seq.; also Preface, viii.

Lord of Eglintoun. I furnished to half-a-dozen of good fellows muskets and picks, and to my boy a broadsword. I carried myself, as the fashion was, a sword, and a couple of Dutch pistols at my saddle; but I promise, for the offence of no man, except a robber in the way; for it was our part alone to pray and preach for the encouragement of our countrymen, which I did to my power most cheerfully." The troops were commanded by noblemen; the captains, for the most part, were landed proprietors; and the lieutenants, experienced soldiers, who had been employed in the wars of Gustavus Adolphus. The colours flying at the entrance of each captain's tent bore the Scottish arms, with the motto, 'For Christ's Crown and Covenant,' in golden letters. There were some companies of Highlanders, "souple fellows, with their playds, targes, and dorlachs." But the soldiers were mostly stout young ploughmen, who increased in courage and experience daily; "the sight of the nobles and their beloved pastors daily raised their hearts; the good sermons and prayers, morning and evening, under the roof of heaven, to which their drums did call them for bells; the remonstrances very frequent of the goodness of their cause; of their conduct hitherto, by a hand clearly divine; also Leslie's skill and fortune made them all so resolute for battle as could be wished. We were feared that emulation among our nobles might have done harm, when they should be met in the fields, but such was the wisdom and authority of that old, little, crooked soldier, that all, with one incredible submission, from the beginning to the end, gave over themselves to be guided by him, as if he had been great Solyman. Certainly the obedience of our nobles to that man's advices was as great as their forbears wont to be to their King's commands." He further adds: "Had you lent your ear in the morning, or especially at even,

and heard in the tents the sound of some singing psalms, some praying, and some reading scripture, ye would have been refreshed. For myself, I never found my mind in better temper than it was all that time frae I came from home, till my head was again homeward; for I was as a man who had taken my leave from the world, and was resolved to die in that service without return."1

The writer of this description was Robert Baillie, and he, in company with two other distinguished clergymen, Alexander Henderson and Robert Blair, visited London just as the "Root and Branch" petition was being prepared. They came with a commission from Scotland, under the broad seal of the Northern Parliament, to settle the quarrel which had led to the encampment of the covenant army-a quarrel in which the Puritans and the Long Parliament took part with the Scotch against the King and his Bishops. Three noblemen three barons and three burgesses were commissioned for the same purpose. With the treaty of peace there was to be the payment of the Scotch troops by the English nation. The clerical commissioners hoped that there would follow the inauguration of goodly presbyteries throughout the fair land of the South, an object which was dearer to them than any political alliance, or than any amount of money.

On Monday morning, November 16th, long before dawn, after spending their Sabbath in the little town of Ware, the three clergymen started for London. They had travelled from Edinburgh on horseback, surprised at the inns, seeming to them "like palaces," which they thought accounted for exorbitant charges for coarse meals. In the dark they trotted forth from Ware, all well, "horse and men, with divers merchants, and their servants on

1 Baillie's Letters and Journals, vol. i. 211-214.