traitors, and the lords and commons at Westminster, guilty of high treason, for inviting them, as well as for counterfeiting the great seal. On the other hand, the parliament at Westminster would not acknowledge the Oxford members, or receive a message from them under the character of a parliament, but expelled them their house, except they returned to their seats within a limited time.* April 16, 1644, the king prorogued his Oxford members, to November following, when they fell under his displeasure, for advising to pacific measures at the treaty of Uxbridge, which was then upon the carpet, and in a fair way of producing an accommodation. This was so disagreeable to the queen, and her Roman catholic counsellors, that they never left off teazing the unhappy king, till he had dismissed them, and broke off the treaty; an account of which he sent her in the following letter, which seems to breathe an air of too great satisfaction.

"Dear heart,

"WHAT I told thee last week, concerning a good 'parting with our lords and commons here, was on Monday last handsomely performed; now if I do any thing 'unhandsome, or disadvantageous to myself or friends, in order to a treaty, it will be merely my own fault.-Now I promise thee, if the treaty be renewed (which I believe it will not) without some eminent good success on my ‹ side, it shall be to my honor and advantage, I being now 'as well free from the place of base and mutinous mo'tion (that is to say, our mungrel parliament here) as of the chief causers, for whom I may justly expect to be 'chidden by thee, for having suffered thee to be vexed by them-"||

Mr. Whitlocke says, this assembly sat again at Oxford in the year 1645, and voted against the directory, and for the common prayer; but the king's cause being

*Rushworth, vol. v. p. 383. Rapin, vol. ii. p. 497, 506, folio. "There is no circumstance," observes bishop Warburton," that bears harder on the king's conduct than this. It is not to be conceiv'ed that these men, who hazarded all to support the king's right, could advise him to any thing base in a mutinous manner. I doubt that this is too strong a proof that nothing less than arbitrary government would heartily satisfy him." Ed.

Rapin, p. 512, folio.

grown desperate, they soon after shifted for themselves, and made their peace at Westminster, upon the best terms they could obtain.

On the 19th of January 1643-4, the Scots army, consisting of twenty-one thousand men, under the command. of general Leven, crossed the Tweed at Berwick, and entered England. The two houses sent a committee to meet them, which being joined by another of that nation, was called the committee of both kingdoms,* and were a sort of camp parliament, to direct the motions of the army, which after some time united with the lord Fairfax's forces, and with those under the command of the earl of Manchester, and lieutenant general Cromwell, from the associated counties. The united armies laid siege to the city of York, which prince Rupert having relieved, occasioned the battle of Marston-Moor, wherein the prince was routed, with the loss of three thousand men and his whole train of artillery; and thereupon the marquis of Newcastle, leaving the royal army, embarked with divers lords and gentlemen for Hamburgh, prince Rupert retiring towards Chester, and deserting all the northern garrisons to the mercy of the enemy, which falling into their hands next summer, concluded the war in those parts.

His majesty however had better success in the West, where being strengthened by prince Maurice, he followed the earl of Essex, and shut up his army within the norrow parts of Cornwall, so that he could neither engage or retreat. Here the king invited the earl to make his peace, but he choosing rather to retire in a boat to Plymouth, left his men to the fortune of war. As soon as the general was gone, the horse under the command of sir William Balfour bravely forced their way through the royal quarters by night; but the foot under the command of major-general Skippon, were obliged to surrender their arms, artillery, ammunition, and baggage, consisting of forty brass cannon, two hundred barrels of powder, match and ball proportionable, seven hundred carriages, and between eight and nine hundred arms, and to swear not to bear arms against the king, till they came into Hampshire. This was the greatest disgrace the parRushworth, vol. vi. p. 603. Ib. vol. v. p. 691, 701, 705, 710.

liament's forces underwent in the course of the war, the foot being forced to travel in a naked and starving condition to Portsmouth, where they were supplied with new cloaths and arms. And now again, the king made offers of such a peace as, he says, he had been laboring for, that is, to be restored to his prerogatives as before the war; but the houses would not submit.

Upon the defeat of the earl of Essex, his majesty resolved to march directly for London, and upon the road issued a proclamation, Sept. 30, 164, requiring all his loving subjects to appear in arms, and accompany him in his present expedition.† This gave rise to a combination of men, distinguished by the name of Club-men, who associated in Worcestershire and Dorsetshire, agreeing to defend themselves against the orders both of king and parliament. Their increase was owing to the prodigious ravages of the king's forces in their march. Prince Rupert was a fiery youth, and with his flying squadrons of horse, burnt towns and villages, destroying the countries where he came, and indulging his soldiers in plunder and blood. In Wales he drove away the people's cattle, rifled their houses, and spoiled their standing corn. Aged and unarmed people were stript naked, some murdered in cool blood, and others half hanged, and burnt, and yet suffered to live.‡ "Lord

- Rapin, vol. ii. p. 504, folio.

Whitlocke, p. 62, 87, 103.

The reference here, in the former editions of Mr. Neal, is to p. 87 of Whitlocke's Memoirs; where all that is said concerning prince Rupert is, "that he took in Liverpool a garrison of the parliament's in Lancashire, but they first shipped all their arms, ammunition and portable goods, and most of the officers and soldiers went on ship-board, whilst a few made good the fort, which they rendered to the prince upon quarter, yet were all put to the sword." "This indeed" says Dr. Grey," was bad enough, but not quite so bad as Mr. Neal has represented it. Not one word of stripping aged and unarmed people naked, or murdering people in cold blood, or of half hanging or burning others. A dismal character of prince Rupert this indeed, had we not reason to call the truth of it in question." The references, which we have now supplied, will shew that the truth of this character ought not to have been questioned, and that it was drawn from facts stated by Mr. Whitlocke. From whom we will give another instance of the severity with which prince Rupert, at the commencement of his military career, pursued his conquests and of the cruelty of the royal parLy from the beginning, before mutual provocations had inflamed their

'Goring, the king's general of the horse, was one of the most finished debauchees of the age, and wanted "nothing but industry to make him as eminent and suc'cessful in the highest attempts of wickedness as ever 'any man was. Wilmot, the lieutenant-general, was as 'great a debauchee as the other, and had no more re'gard to his promises, or any rules of honor and integ"rity." Sir Richard Greenville, who commanded the army before Plymouth, is represented by the noble historian, as having been exceeding barbarous and cruel in Ireland, hanging up old men and women of quality, even though they were bed-rid, if he did not find the plunder he expected; when he came into the west, he exercised all kinds of cruelty, and would sometimes make one of the company hang all the rest, contrary to the law of arms. §

The licentiousness of the king's soldiers, was not inferior to that of their officers; for having no regular pay, they committed rapines and plunders, without distinction of friends or foes; and were infamous for the most execrable oaths, and all kinds of impiety. "Lord Goring's horse '(says the noble historian) committed horrid outrages and passions; or they had been familiarised to scenes of blood. When the prince had taken the magazine of the county at Cirencester, and 1100 prisoners, he sent these captives, tied together with cords, almost naked, beaten and driven along like dogs, in triumph to Oxford; where the king and the lords looked on them, and too many smiled at their misery. Memoirs, p. 64. Ed.

Our reader will be surprised, when he is told, that Dr. Grey discredits this character of the lieutenant-general Wilmot, though it is given from lord Clarendon, and opposes to it a narrative of his lordship, in which he relates, that Wilmot, when he was before Marlborough, gave not only his life, but his liberty, to a spy whom he had apprehended. This Dr. Grey extols as a generous act, when, according to the statement he himself gives of it from Clarendon, it was to be ascribed to Wilmot's policy and generalship. For, before he dismissed the spy, he ordered his forces to be drawn up before him in the most convenient place, and bid the fellow to look well upon them, and observe, and return to the town and report what he had seen, with a threat to the magistrates if the garrison did not surrender, and a promise of security if it submitted. The representations which the man made were of some advantage to the views of the royal party. Yet this conduct of Wilmot, which seems to have been a manoeuvre only, in order to disparage Mr. Neal's delineation of his general character, is pompously represented by Dr. Grey as a singular instance of honor and generosity. Ed. § Ibid. p. 534.

|| Clarendon, vol. 9. 537, 555.

barbarities in Hampshire, and infested the borders of 'Dorsetshire, Somersetshire, and Devon, with unheard-of rapines, so that the people who were well devoted to the 'king, wished for the accession of any force to redeem them." They raised vast contributions in several counties, without any other pretence but the king's sovereign pleasure. In Cornwall they levied seven hundred pounds a week; in Devonshire two thousand two hundred pounds a week, and proportionable in other parts. As the army marched along the country, they seized the farmers' horses, and carried them away without any consideration. At Barnstable they plundered the town, and hanged the mayor, though it was surrendered upon articles. At Evesham the king sent the mayor and alderman prisoners to Oxford. At Woodhouse in Devonshire, they seized fourteen substantial west-country clothiers, who were not in arms, and hanged them, by way of reprisals for some Irish rebels. that had been executed according to the ordiance of parlia ment. In short, wherever they came they lived at freequarter, and took but every thing they could, and therefore no wonder the Club-Men united in their own defence.

The king thought to have reached London before the parliament could recruit their army, but the two houses sent immediately six thousand arms, and a train of artillery to Portsmouth, with new clothing for the Cornish soldiers. They ordered sir William Waller and the earl of Manchester to join them, and dispatched thither five thousand of the city train-bands, under the command of sir James Harington. by which accession they were enabled to face his majesty's army at Newbury, October 27, and having forced the town, which the king had fortified, after a smart engagement they took nine of his cannon and several colours, but under covert of the night, his majesty secured the rest of his artillery in Dennington-Castle, and retreated with his broken army to Oxford; the parliament generals left a body of troops to block up the castle, being assured it must surrender in the winter for want of provision; when on a sudden a party of the king's horse raised the blockade, and carried off the artillery to Oxford. This occasioned great murmuring at London, and quarrels among * Clarendon, p. 631. ‡ Ibid. p. 648.