available wherever the persons named in that ordinance were really zealous for Parliament and able to act personally in the districts assigned them. And so on the 12th of July the Parliament had passed the necessary vote for supplying an army, and had appointed the Earl of Essex to be its commander-in-chief, and the Earl of Bedford to be its second in command as general of horse. It was known, on the other side, that the Earl of Lindsey, in consideration of his past experience of service both on sea and land, was to have the command of the King's army, and that his master of horse was to be the King's nephew, young Prince Rupert, who was expected from the Continent on purpose.

Despite all these preparations, however, it was probably not till August had begun that the certainty of Civil War was universally acknowledged. It was on the 9th of that month that the King issued his proclamation "for suppressing the present Rebellion under the command of Robert, Earl of Essex," offering pardon to him and others if within six days they made their submission. The Parliamentary answer to this was on the 11th; on which day the Commons resolved, each man separately rising in his place and giving his word, that they would stand by the Earl of Essex with their lives and fortunes to the end. Still, even after that, there were trembling souls here and there who hoped for a reconciliation. Monday the 22nd of August put an end to all such fluttering:-On that day, the King, who had meanwhile left York, and come about a hundred miles farther south, into the very heart of England, was known to be moving about between Coventry and Leicester, not without the expectation of a conflict between the force of some 2,000 horse and foot who were then with him and the Parliamentarian troops who had been gathered to prevent his threatened seizure of Coventry. But, late in the day, after dining at

Leicester, he made a backward movement as far as the town of Nottingham, where preparations had been made for the great scene that was to follow. With the King there were the Prince of Wales and Prince Rupert, together with such lords and gentlemen as he had chosen to keep round him for the occasion. Among these was Sir Edmund Verney, Knight Marshal of England and hereditary royal standard-bearer. This gentleman's position, in consideration of the part he had to perform, is worth describing. "My condition," he had recently said to Mr. Hyde in a private conversation, "is much "worse than yours, and different, I believe, from any other "man's, and will very well justify the melancholy that, I "confess to you, possesses me. You have satisfaction in your "conscience that you are in the right, that the King ought "not to grant what is required of him; and so you do your duty and business together: but, for my part, I do not like "the quarrel, and do heartily wish that the King would yield, "and consent to what they desire, so that my conscience is "only concerned in honour and in gratitude to follow my "master. I have eaten his bread and served him near "thirty years, and will not do so base a thing as to forsake "him, and choose rather to lose my life (which I am sure I "shall do) to preserve and defend those things which are "against my conscience to preserve and defend; for I will "deal freely with you-I have no reverence for the Bishops, "for whom this quarrel subsists." It was on this gentleman, in virtue of his office, that the chief duty devolved in the ceremony that was now enacted at Nottingham. This consisted in bringing out the royal standard and setting it up in due form. It was about six o'clock in the evening when it was done, the spot being the top of the Castle-hill, or a field close at the back of the old Castle. When Sir Edmund Verney and his assistants had done their work, and the great standard was streaming out, with a special flag attached, bearing the King's arms quartered and the emblem of a hand pointing to a crown, interpreted by the motto "Give Cæsar his due," then, the King, the Prince of Wales, Prince Rupert, and all the train, standing close round, and the horse and foot

near, a Herald read a proclamation, declaring the cause why the standard had been set up, and summoning all the lieges to assist his Majesty. Those who were present cheered and threw up their hats, and, with a beating of drums and a sounding of trumpets, the ceremony ended. During the night, it was afterwards said, the standard was blown down by a violent tempest of wind, and it could not be set right again for several days. Nevertheless from that evening of the 22nd of August, 1642, the Civil War had begun.1

1 Clar. Hist. 288, 289, and Life, 954; Rushworth, IV. 183, 184; Whitlocke, I. 179; Parl. Hist. II. 1456-1458; Rapin, II. 457-459.-It is strange that, in so remarkable an affair as the setting up of the King's standard, there should be such a contrariety of accounts. Rushworth makes August 22 the day, in which he is confirmed by Whitlocke and other unexceptionable authorities; Clarendon distinctly makes it the 25th. Rushworth makes the place of the ceremony "a field a little on the back of the castle wall;" Clarendon makes it "the top of the castle hill." Clarendon introduces Sir Edmund Verney as the principal figure; Rushworth, though mentioning some of the "knights-bannerets" who bore the standard, does not name Verney. Rushworth makes the affair one of great deliberation and state, after previous appointment and lodging of the standard in Nottingham Castle for the purpose; Clarendon represents it as

burried. Clarendon says the King had very few with him, "not one regiment of foot yet levied and brought together," and that the whole affair had a melancholy look; Rushworth distinctly speaks of the King's train as numerous, "besides a great company of horse and foot, in all to the number of 2,000." Finally, Rushworth says nothing of the windy night and the blowing down of the standard; but, on the contrary, he says the standard was formally taken down the same evening it was set up, and again next day set up and taken down, and so the day after, the King each day being present as at first, till the third day inclusivelyafter which there was less ceremony. Clarendon's account, as being the more picturesque, has been followed by Rapin and later historians. I have not the least doubt, however, that Rushworth is the authority to be trusted, both as to the day and as to other particulars.

BOOK III.

AUGUST 1642-JULY 1643.

HISTORY:-COMMENCEMENT OF THE CIVIL WAR: THE LONG

PARLIAMENT CONTINUED: MEETING OF THE WESTMINSTER

ASSEMBLY.

BIOGRAPHY:-MILTON STILL IN ALDERSGATE STREET: His

MARRIAGE.