my ruin in Parliament; God grant this be no omen!" There is also in the State Paper Office a little scrap of writing, in Laud's hand, much corrected, erased, and interlined, which it is very touching now to handle and to read. It is a draft of his Archiepiscopal prayer for the opening of the new Parliament, and is as follows::

"O Æternall God and Mer. Father, as it hath pleased thee to putt his Majestye's hart to Assemble a Parlament for the better settleinge of his affaires both at home and abroad, soe I most humblye beseech thee to bless this great Assemblye, and all their counsells, to ye good both of the Kinge and his people. And to thiss end, Good L:, give the Kinge a Hart of judgment to all yt for his people becomes a good, a gracious, a just, a pious, and a prudent Kinge, and give the Parlament a hart of Dewtye to doe all y towards ye Kinge which becomes an obedient, a Religious, a moderate, a free, and a wise people: That the K. and his peo., meeting with these affections, maye go on with mutual comfort and contentment, to ye great honor of ye Kinge, ye saftye of ye Kingdome, and ye settlement of true Religion, to the finall extirpation both of superstition and schisme, and ye upholdinge of ye true and meere worship of God in ye land. O, L: grant this, even for Jesus Ch his sake: Amen."

BOOK II.

NOVEMBER 1640-AUGUST 1642.

HISTORY:-FIRST TWO-AND-TWENTY MONTHS OF

PARLIAMENT.

THE LONG

BIOGRAPHY:-MILTON IN ALDERSGATE STREET: HIS ANTI

EPISCOPAL PAMPHLETS.

L2

CHAPTER I.

MEETING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT-ITS COMPOSITION AND CHIEFS

NINE MONTHS OF GENERAL PARLIAMENTARY ACTION (NOV. 1640 -AUG. 1641)—THE ENGLISH CHURCH REFORM MOVEMENT.

ON Tuesday, the 3rd of November, 1640, the Long Parliament met in Westminster. Imagination can yet retrace the sites of the two old Houses in the great area covered by the architecture of the present edifices. The old House of Lords. was a building at the south end of Westminster Hall, and parallel with the river. The old Commons' House, St. Stephen's Chapel, was a long, narrow building of the fourteenth century, in a rich ecclesiastical style, at right angles to Westminster Hall, with the entrance at its west end, where it adjoined the Hall, and a large window at the other end. The formalities of the opening of the Parliament were more sombre than usual. The King, having no heart for a procession through the streets, went in his barge from Whitehall to Westminster Stairs. Thence, about one o'clock, accompanied by the Lords, who had joined him there, he went through Westminster Hall to the Abbey to hear a sermon from the Bishop of Bristol; after which, having come to the Lords' House, and having sent for the Commons, he delivered an opening speech, and called upon Lord Keeper Finch to deliver another, explaining his views more at large. The Commons then returned to their own House, where, upon the motion of Secretary Sir Henry Vane, the leading ministerial member in that House, they unanimously elected for their Speaker William Lenthall, Esq., one of the members for Woodstock. He was a Lincoln's Inn barrister of some small note, who had been selected by the King at the last moment for the Speaker