at all, for religion, either in substance or form. Some scoffed at sacred things, and made a boast of their profanity and licentiousness. If Puritans quoted Scripture, sometimes with more reverence than wisdom, Royalists could use it with a blasphemous kind of vulgar wit which it is shocking to record. For example, on an ensign captured in Dorsetshire, a cannon was painted, with this motto: "O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise." The ecclesiastical aspects of the civil war may be seen in the State Papers issued at the time. For the present, it suffices to observe that the English and the Scotch differed in their views respecting the relation in which the religious and political questions of the day stood to each other. The Scotch entered the field under the banner of Church, Crown, and Covenant, to carry on a contest, if not purely religious, yet one which was so in the main. Political considerations were subordinate: the flag was unfurled, and the sword drawn for Presbyterianism against Popery and against Prelacy. The rights of synods, and the interests of pure and undefiled religion, more than the privileges of Parliament, constituted the precious national treasure, to secure which the veteran General Leslie encamped with that great host, which Baillie so graphically describes. In the case of the Parliamentary army of England, it was otherwise. In the beginning, indeed, the Lancashire Puritans, when taking up arms, proceeded entirely on religious grounds, and emulated their more northern neighbours in that respect. They dreaded the Papists living amongst them; and it was against those Papists, not against the King, as they expressly declared, that they threw themselves into the civil war. During the siege of Manchester, the inhabitants, in their answer to the Royalist Lord Strange, identified his proceedings with the cause of the Roman Catholics, many of whom were marching under his flag.1 And in connection with this prominence, in one part of the country at least, given to the religious phase of the conflict, it should be remembered that English Puritans never counted religion in any of its relations as less than supreme; that they always professed obedience to Christianity as the supreme law of life; and that they were thoroughly religious, as to motive and spirit, in all their military service. So completely was this the case, that no Crusader could be more devout, as he buckled on his sword to fight for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre, than the Roundhead was, when he buttoned his souldier's pocket-bible' in his waistcoat, and shouldered his musket to fight against Rome and the devil-as well as against political despotism. But still, this latter object appears most conspicuous in our civil war. Pym and his associates were emphatically Parliament men: they engaged in a Parliament struggle, to save the English Constitution from the absorbing encroachments of the King's prerogative. Ecclesiastical questions necessarily connected themselves with such as were political, but the former were kept subordinate; and, when appearing in State documents, they occupy a far less space, and are treated with much less minuteness and fulness than the latter. The previous history of our country had given this shape to the controversy. As prior circumstances in Scotland had made the war for the Scotch principally one on behalf of the rights of the Church, prior circumstances in England made it for the English principally a war on behalf of civil liberty. Through a victory achieved for the Church, the Scotch intended to establish the political well-being of 'Hibbert's History of Manchester, i. 210. their country; through a victory obtained for the Parliament, the English meant to promote the spiritual interests of the Church. The relation between the two aspects of the conflict, in each case, came to be regulated accordingly. CHAPTER XI. To employ an apt but homely figure used by Mrs. То Hutchinson, the smoke ascended from the tops of the chimneys before the flame broke out. As early as April, the King appeared at the gates of Hull, where he was denied entrance by Sir John Hotham. In the middle of June, the Commission of Array at Leicester came into collision with the Parliamentary militia. In August, the brave Lord Brooke set out from Warwick Castle with three hundred musketeers and two hundred horse, gathering round him recruits to the number of three thousand; the country sending "six loads of harrows to keep off horses, and a cart-load of bread and cheese, and great store of beer."1 Reluctant to shed blood, the Puritan commander charged his soldiers, for the kingdom's sake, not to fire a single pistol except in self-defence. Happily, there arose no occasion for firing at all, as the Royalists, under the Earl of Northampton, threw down their arms, and ran away. The King, in revenge of Brooke's conduct, bestowed that nobleman's castle as an escheat on the Lord of Compton-Winyates, after which the patriot, in defiance of this injustice and insult, planted ordnance at the gate and keep of his feudal fortress, and on the top 1 "Some Special Passages from Warwickshire." King's Pamphlets, Brit. Mus. Acts and Orders, i. 124. of Cæsar's tower. Lord Compton, forcibly claiming the royal grant, assailed the stronghold left under the charge of Sir Edward Peto, and planted cannon on the church to bombard the castle. Dislodged by shots, the besieger endeavoured to starve out the garrison; but Sir Edward, with grim Puritan resolution, hoisted a flag displaying the figures of a Bible and a winding sheet, which presented very significant symbols of the objects and spirit of the rising war.1 On the afternoon of Monday, the 22nd of August, there occurred the world-famous act of setting up the King's standard at Nottingham. After dinner, he with his company rode into the town from Leicester Abbey. The standard was taken out of the castle and carried into a field behind the castle wall. It resembled one of the city streamers used at the Lord Mayor's show; it had about twenty supporters; on its top hung a flag with the royal arms quartered, and a hand pointing to the crown, with the motto, "Give Cæsar his due." It was conducted to the field in great state by the King, Prince Rupert, and divers Lords. A proclamation respecting the war had been prepared, which his Majesty read over, and, seeming to dislike some expressions, called for pen and ink, and with his own hand crossed out or altered them; after which, when the paper was read, the multitude threw up their hats and cried, "God save the King." It was now late in the month of August, the days were closing in, and the evening shadows fell on the King and his staff as they engaged in this act which finally plunged England into a civil war. A violent storm of wind arose and blew down the standard, almost as soon as it was unfurled.2 As the cavaliers, in the 'King's Pamphlets, Brit. Mus. Acts and Orders, ii. 124. |