the author and of Charles I., the History is not, does not profess to be, impartial; it suppresses the truth where the truth seemed unfavourable; and it is grossly inaccurate-the result of a fallible memory. But, Mr Green notwithstanding, it does not 'by deliberate and malignant falsehood' pervert the whole action of Clarendon's adversaries; careless and ungenerous he might be, wilfully dishonest he was not. And though his style is prolix and redundant, though it suffocates us by the length of its periods,' his splendid stateliness, his narrative skill, his development of motives, and, above all, his marvellous skill in portraiture (shown best in the character of Falkland), have rendered the History an imperishable classic.

Reception of the Liturgy at Edinburgh in 1637. On the Sunday morning appointed for the work, the Chancellor of Scotland and others of the Council being present in the cathedral church, the dean began to read the Liturgy, which he had no sooner entered upon but a noise and clamour was raised throughout the church, that no voice could be heard distinctly, and then a shower of stones and sticks and cudgels were thrown at the dean's head. The bishop went up into the pulpit, and from thence put them in mind of the sacredness of the place, of their duty to God and the King; but he found no more reverence, nor was the clamour or disorder less than before. The Chancellor, from his seat, commanded the provost and magistrates of the city to descend from the gallery in which they sat, and by their authority to suppress the riot; which at last with great difficulty they did, by driving the rudest of those who made the disturbance out of the church, and shutting the doors, which gave the dean opportunity to proceed in the reading of the Liturgy, which was not at all intended or hearkened to by those who remained within the church; and if it had, they who were turned out continued their barbarous noise, brake the windows, and endeavoured to break down the doors; so that it was not possible for any to follow their devotions.

When all was done that at that time could be done there, and the Council and magistrates went out of the church to their houses, the rabble followed the bishops with all the opprobrious language they could invent, of bringing in superstition and Popery into the kingdom, and making the people slaves; and were not content to use their tongues, but employed their hands too in throwing dirt and stones at them, and treated the Bishop of Edinburgh (whom they looked upon as most active that way) so rudely that with great difficulty he got into a house after they had torn his habit, and was from thence removed to his own with great hazard of his life. As this was the reception it had in the cathedral, so it fared not better in the other churches in the city, but was entertained with the same hollowing and outcries, and threatening the men whose office it was to read it with the same bitter execrations against bishops and Popery.

Hitherto no person of condition or name appeared, or seemed to countenance this seditious confusion; it was the rabble, of which nobody was named, and, which is more strange, not one apprehended and it seems the bishops thought it not of moment enough to desire

:

or require any help or protection from the Council; but, without conferring with them or applying themselves to them, they despatched away an express to the King with a full and particular information of all that had passed, and a desire that he would take that course he thought best for the carrying on his service.

Until this advertisement arrived from Scotland, there were very few in England who had heard of any disorders there, or of anything done there which might produce any. The King himself had been always so jealous of the privileges of that his native kingdom (as hath been touched before), and that it might not be dishonoured by a suspicion of having any dependence upon England, that he never suffered any thing relating to that to be debated or so much as communicated to his Privy Council in this (though many of that nation were, without distinction, Councillors of England), but handled all those affairs himself with two or three Scotchmen who always attended in the Court for the business of that kingdom, which was upon the matter still despatched by the sole advice and direction of the Marquis of Hambleton [Hamilton].

And the truth is, there was so little curiosity either in the Court or the country to know any thing of Scotland, or what was done there, that when the whole nation was solicitous to know what passed weekly in Germany and Poland and all other parts of Europe, no man ever inquired what was doing in Scotland, nor had that kingdom a place or mention in one page of any gazette, so little the world heard or thought of that people; and even after the advertisement of this preamble to rebellion, no mention was made of it at the Council-board, but such a despatch made into Scotland upon it as expressed the King's dislike and displeasure, and obliged the lords of the Council there to appear more vigorously in the vindication of his authority, and suppression of those tumults. But all was too little. That people, after they had once begun, pursued the business vigorously, and with all imaginable contempt of the government; and though in the hubbub of the first day there appeared nobody of name or reckoning, but the actors were really of the dregs of the people, yet they discovered by the countenance of that day that few men of rank were forward to engage themselves in the quarrel on the behalf of the bishops; whereupon more considerable persons every day appeared against them, and, as heretofore in the case of St Paul (Acts xiii. 50), the Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women, the women and ladies of the best quality declared themselves of the party, and with all the reproaches imaginable made war upon the bishops, as introducers of Popery and superstition, against which they avowed themselves to be irreconcilable enemies : and their husbands did not long defer the owning the same spirit; insomuch as within few days the bishops durst not appear in the streets nor in any courts or houses, but were in danger of their lives; and such of the lords as durst be in their company, or seemed to desire to rescue them from violence, had their coaches torn in pieces, and their persons assaulted, insomuch as they were glad to send for some of those great men who did indeed govern the rabble though they appeared not in it, who readily came and redeemed them out of their hands. So that by the time new orders came from England, there was scarce a bishop left in Edinburgh, and not a minister who durst read the Liturgy in any church.

Character of Hampden.

Mr Hampden was a man of much greater cunning, and it may be of the most discerning spirit, and of the greatest address and insinuation to bring any thing to pass which he desired of any man of that time, and who laid the design deepest. He was a gentleman of a good extraction and a fair fortune, who from a life of great pleasure and license had on a sudden retired to extraordinary sobriety and strictness, and yet retained his usual cheerfulness and affability; which, together with the opinion of his wisdom and justice and the courage he had shewed in opposing the ship-money, raised his reputation to a very great height, not only in Buckinghamshire where he lived, but generally throughout the kingdom. He was not a man of many words, and rarely began the discourse, or made the first entrance upon any business that was assumed; but a very weighty speaker, and after he had heard a full debate, and observed how the House was like to be inclined, took up the argument, and shortly and clearly and craftily so stated it that he commonly conducted it to the conclusion he desired; and if he found he could not do that, he was never without the dexterity to divert the debate to another time, and to prevent the determining any thing in the negative which might prove inconvenient in the future. He made so great a show of civility and modesty and humility, and always of mistrusting his own judgment and of esteeming his with whom he conferred for the present, that he seemed to have no opinions or resolutions but such as he contracted from the information and instruction he received upon the discourses of others, whom he had a wonderful art of governing and leading into his principles and inclinations whilst they believed that he wholly depended upon their counsel and advice. No man had ever a greater power over himself or was less the man that he seemed to be, which shortly after appeared to every body when he cared less to keep on the mask.

Character of Lord Falkland.

In this unhappy battle [the first of Newbury] was slain the Lord Viscount Falkland: a person of such prodigious parts of learning and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive simplicity and integrity of life, that if there were no other brand upon this odious and accursed civil war than that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity.

'Turpe mori post te solo non posse dolore.' Before this Parliament his condition of life was so happy that it was hardly capable of improvement. Before he came to twenty years of age he was master of a noble fortune, which descended to him by the gift of a grandfather, without passing through his father or mother, who were then both alive, and not well enough contented to find themselves passed by in the descent. His education for some years had been in Ireland, where his father was Lord Deputy; so that when he returned into England to the possession of his fortune, he was unentangled with any acquaintance or friends, which usually grow up by the custom of conversation, and therefore was to make a pure election of his company, which he chose by other rules than were prescribed to the young nobility of that time. And it cannot be denied, though he admitted some few to his friendship for the agreeableness of their

natures and their undoubted affection to him, that his familiarity and friendship for the most part was with men of the most eminent and sublime parts, and of untouched reputation in point of integrity; and such men had a title to his bosom.

He was a great cherisher of wit and fancy and good parts in any man, and, if he found them clouded with poverty or want, a most liberal and bountiful patron towards them, even above his fortune; of which in those administrations he was such a dispenser as if he had been trusted with it to such uses, and if there had been the least of vice in his expense, he might have been thought too prodigal. He was constant and pertinacious in whatsoever he resolved to do, and not to be wearied by any pains that were necessary to that end. And therefore, having once resolved not to see London (which he loved above all places) till he had perfectly learned the Greek tongue, he went to his own house in the country, and pursued it with that indefatigable industry that it will not be believed in how short a time he was master of it, and accurately read all the Greek historians. In this time, his house being within ten miles of Oxford, he contracted familiarity and friendship with the most polite and accurate men of that university, who found such an immenseness of wit, and such a solidity of judgment in him, so infinite a fancy bound in by a most logical ratiocination, such a vast knowledge that he was not ignorant in any thing, yet such an excessive humility as if he had known nothing, that they frequently resorted and dwelt with him as in a college situated in a purer air; so that his house was a university bound in a lesser volume, whither they came not so much for repose as study, and to examine and refine those grosser propositions which laziness and consent made current in vulgar conversation.

Many attempts were made upon him by the instigation of his mother (who was a lady of another persuasion in religion, and of a most masculine understanding, allayed with the passion and infirmities of her own sex) to pervert him in his piety to the Church of England, and to reconcile him to that of Rome; which they prosecuted with the more confidence, because he declined no opportunity or occasion of conference with those of that religion, whether priests or laics, having diligently studied the controversies, and exactly read all or the choicest of the Greek and Latin Fathers, and having a memory so stupendous that he remembered on all occasions whatsoever he read. And he was so great an enemy to that passion and uncharitableness which he saw produced by difference of opinion in matters of religion, that in all those disputations with priests and others of the Roman Church he affected to manifest all possible civility to their persons, and estimation of their parts; which made them retain still some hope of his reduction, even when they had given over offering farther reasons to him to that purpose. But this charity towards them was much lessened, and any correspondence with them quite declined, when by sinister arts they had corrupted his two younger brothers, being both children, and stolen them from his house and transported them beyond seas, and perverted his sisters: upon which occasion he writ two large discourses against the principal positions of that religion, with that sharpness of style and full weight of reason that the Church is deprived of great jewels in the concealment of them, and that they are not published to the world.

He was superior to all those passions and affections which attend vulgar minds, and was guilty of no other ambition than of knowledge, and to be reputed a lover of all good men; and that made him too much a contemner of those arts which must be indulged in the transactions of human affairs. In the last short Parliament he was a burgess in the House of Commons; and from the debates, which were there managed with all imaginable gravity and sobriety, he contracted such a reverence to parliaments that he thought it really impossible that they could

ever produce mischieve or inconvenience to the kingdom, or that the kingdom could be tolerably happy in the intermission of them. . . .

He had a courage of the most clear and keen temper, and so far from fear that he was not without appetite of danger; and therefore upon any occasion of action he

always engaged his person in those troops which he thought by the

forwardness of the commanders to be most like to be farthest engaged; and in all such encounters he had about him a strange cheerfulness and companiable ness, without at all affecting the execution that attended them; in which he took no delight, but took pains to prevent it where it was not by resist

mand of a troop of horse, of which he had a promise, he went a volunteer with the Earl of Essex.

From the entrance into this unnatural war, his natural cheerfulness and vivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sadness and dejection of spirit stole upon him which he had never been used to; yet being one of those who believed that one battle would end all differences, and that there would be so great a victory on one side that the other would be compelled to submit to any conditions from the victor (which supposition and conclusion, gener

ance necessary: insomuch that at Edgehill, when the enemy was routed, he was like to have incurred great peril by interposing to save those who had thrown away their arms, and against whom it may be others were more fierce for their having thrown them away: insomuch as a man might think he came into the field only out of curiosity to see the face of danger, and charity to prevent the shedding of blood. Yet in his natural inclination he acknowledged he was addicted to the profession of a soldier; and shortly after he came to his fortune, and before he came to age, he went into the Low Countries, with a resolution of procuring command, and to give himself up to it; from which he was converted by the complete inactivity of that summer: and so he returned into England, and shortly after entered upon that vehement course of study we mentioned before, till the first alarum from the north; and then again he made ready for the field, and though he received some repulse in the com

ally sunk into the minds of most men, prevented the looking after many advantages which might then have been laid hold of) he resisted those indispositions, et in luctu bellum inter remedia erat. But after the King's return from Brainford, and the furious resolution of the two Houses not to admit any treaty for peace, those indispositions which

had before touched

him grew into a perfect habit of uncheerfulness; and he who had been so exactly unreserved and affable to all men that his face and countenance was always present and vacant to his company, and held any cloudiness and less pleasantness of the visage a kind of rudeness or incivility, became on a sudden less communicable, and

thence very sad, pale, and exceedingly affected with the spleen. In his clothes and habit, which he had intended before always with more neatness and industry and expense than is usual to so great a mind, he was not now only incurious but too negligent; and in his reception of suitors, and the necessary or casual addresses to his place, so quick and sharp and severe, that there wanted not some men (who were strangers to his nature and disposition) who believed him proud and imperious; from which no mortal man was ever more free. . . .

When there was any overture or hope of peace he would be more erect and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press any thing which he thought might promote it; and sitting amongst his friends, often, after a deep silence and frequent sighs, would, with a shrill and sad accent, ingeminate the word Peace, Peace, and would passionately profess that the very agony of the war, and the view of the calamities and desolation

the kingdom did and must endure, took his sleep from him, and would shortly break his heart. This made some think, or pretend to think, that he was so much enamoured on peace, that he would have been glad the King should have bought it at any price; which was a most unreasonable calumny; as if a man that was himself the most punctual and precise in every circumstance that might reflect upon conscience or honour could have wished the King to have committed a trespass against either. . . .

In the morning before the battle, as always upon action, he was very cheerful, and put himself into the first rank of the Lord Byron's regiment, who was then advancing upon the enemy, who had lined the hedges on both sides with musketeers; from whence he was shot with a musket on the lower part of the belly, and in the instant falling from his horse, his body was not found till the next morning, till when there was some hope he might have been a prisoner; though his nearest friends, who knew his temper, received small comfort from that imagination. Thus fell that incomparable young man, in the four-and-thirtieth year of his age, having so much despatched the business of life, that the oldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter not into the world with more innocence: and whosoever leads such a life need not care upon how short warning it is taken from him.

The Battle of Stratton.

Towards the middle of May, the Earl of Stamford marched into Cornwall, by the north part, with a body of fourteen hundred horse and dragoons, and five thousand four hundred foot by the poll, with a train of thirteen brass ordnance, and a mortar piece, and a very plentiful magazine of victual and ammunition, and every way in as good an equipage as could be provided by men who wanted no money; whilst the King's small forces, being not half the number, and unsupplied with every useful thing, were at Lanson [Launceston]; of whom the enemy had so full a contempt, though they knew they were marching to them, within six or seven miles, that they considered only how to take them after they were dispersed, and to prevent their running into Pendennis Castle to give them further trouble. Το which purpose having encamped themselves upon the flat top of a very high hill, to which the ascents were very steep every way, near Stratton, being the only part of Cornwall eminently disaffected to the King's service, they sent a party of twelve hundred horse and dragoons, under the command of Sir George Chudleigh, father to their Major-general, to Bodmin to surprise the high shrief [sheriff], and principal gentlemen of the country; and thereby, not only to prevent the coming up of any more strength to the King's party, but, under the awe of such a power of horse, to make the whole country rise for them. This design, which was not in itself unreasonable, proved fortunate to the King. For his forces which marched from Lanson, with a resolution to fight with the enemy, upon any disadvantage of place or number (which, how hazardous soever, carried less danger with it than retiring into the county, or anything else that was in their power), easily now resolved to assault the camp in the absence of their horse; and with this resolution they marched on Monday the fifteenth of May within a mile of the enemy; being so destitute of all provisions, that the best officers

had but a biscuit a man a day, for two days, the enemy looking upon them as their own.

On Tuesday the sixteenth of May, about five of the clock in the morning, they disposed themselves to their work, having stood in their arms all the night. The number of foot was about two thousand four hundred, which they divided into four parts, and agreed on their several provinces. The first was commanded by the Lord Mohun and Sir Ralph Hopton, who undertook to assault the camp on the south side. Next them, on the left hand, Sir John Berkely and Sir Bevil Greenvill were to force their way. Sir Nicholas Slanning and Colonel Trevannion were to assault the north side; and on their left hand, Colonel Thomas Basset, who was Major-general of their foot, and Colonel William Godolphin were to advance with their party; each party having two pieces of cannon to dispose as they found necessary: Colonel John Digby commanding the horse and dragoons, being about five hundred, stood upon a sandy common which had a way to the camp, to take any advantage he could of the enemy, if they charged; otherwise, to be firm as

a reserve.

In this manner the fight begun; the King's forces pressing with their utmost vigour those four ways up the hill, and the enemy's as obstinately defending their ground. The fight continued with very doubtful success till towards three of the clock in the afternoon, when word was brought to the chief officers of the Cornish that their ammunition was spent to less than four barrels of powder; which (concealing the defect from the soldiers) they resolved could be only supplied with courage: and therefore, by messengers to one another, they agreed to advance with their full bodies, without making any more shot, till they reached the top of the hill, and so might be upon even ground with the enemy; wherein the officer's courage and resolution was so well seconded by the soldier that they began to get ground in all places, and the enemy, in wonder of the men who out-faced their shot with their swords, to quit their post. Majorgeneral Chudleigh, who order'd the battle, failed in no part of a soldier; and when he saw his men recoil from less numbers, and the enemy in all places gaining the hill upon him, himself advanced, with a good stand of pikes, upon that party which was led by Sir John Berkely and Sir Bevil Greenvill, and charged them so smartly that he put them into disorder; Sir Bevil Greenvill in the shock being borne to the ground, but quickly relieved by his companion, they so reinforced the charge, that having killed most of the assailants and dispersed the rest, they took the Major-general prisoner, after he had behaved himself with as much courage as a man could do. Then the enemy gave ground apace, insomuch as the four parties, growing nearer and nearer as they ascended the hill, between three and four of the clock they all met together upon one ground near the top of the hill, where they embraced with unspeakable joy, each congratulating the other's success, and all acknowledging the wonderful blessing of God; and being there possessed of some of the enemy's cannon, they turned them upon the camp, and advanced together to perfect their victory. But the enemy no sooner understood the loss of their Major-general but their hearts failed them; and being so resolutely pressed, and their ground lost, upon the security and advantage whereof they wholely depended, some of them threw down their arms and others fled; dispersing themselves, and every

man shifting for himself, their general, the Earl of Stamford, giving the example, who (having stood at a safe distance all the time of the battle, environed with all the horse, which in small parties, though it is true their whole number was not above six or seven score, might have done great mischief to the several parties of foot, who with so much difficulty scaled the steep hill) as soon as he saw the day lost, and some said sooner, made all imaginable haste to Exciter [Exeter], to prepare them for the condition they were shortly to expect.

Character of Charles I.

But it will not be unnecessary to add the short character of his person, that posterity may know the inestimable loss which the nation then underwent, in being deprived of a prince whose example would have had a greater influence upon the manners and piety of the nation than the most strict laws can have. To speak first of his private qualifications as a man, before the mention of his princely and royal virtues; he was, if ever any, the most worthy of the title of an honest man; so great a lover of justice, that no temptation could dispose him to a wrongful action, except it were so disguised to him that he believed it to be just. He had a tenderness and compassion of nature which restrained him from ever doing a hard-hearted thing; and therefore he was so apt to grant pardon to malefactors, that his judges represented to him the damage and insecurity to the public that flowed from such his indulgence; and then he restrained himself from pardoning either murders or highway robberies, and quickly discerned the fruits of his severity by a wonderful reformation of those enormities. He was very punctual and regular in his devotions; so that he was never known to enter upon his recreations or sports, though never so early in the morning, before he had been at public prayers; so that on hunting-days his chaplains were bound to a very early attendance. And he was likewise very strict in observing the hours of his private cabinet devotions, and was SO severe an exactor of gravity and reverence in all mention of religion, that he could never endure any light or profane word in religion, with what sharpness of wit soever it was covered though he was well pleased and delighted with reading verses made upon any occasion, no man durst bring before him any thing that was profane or unclean; that kind of wit had never any countenance then. He was so great an example of conjugal affection, that they who did not imitate him in that particular did not brag of their liberty: and he did not only permit but direct his bishops to prosecute those scandalous vices in the ecclesiastical courts against persons of eminence and near relation to his service.

His kingly virtues had some mixture and allay that hindered them from shining in full lustre, and from producing those fruits they should have been attended with. He was not in his nature bountiful, though he gave very much which appeared more after the duke of Buckingham's death, after which those showers fell very rarely; and he paused too long in giving, which made those to whom he gave less sensible of the benefit. He kept state to the full, which made his Court very orderly, no man presuming to be seen in a place where he had no pretence to be. He saw and observed men long before he received any about his person, and did not love strangers, nor very confident men. He

was a patient hearer of causes, which he frequently accustomed himself to at the Council board; and judged very well, and was dexterous in the mediating part; so that he often put an end to causes by persuasion, which the stubbornness of men's humours made dilatory in courts of justice.

He was very fearless in his person, but not enterprising; and had an excellent understanding, but was not confident enough of it; which made him oftentimes change his own opinion for a worse, and follow the advice of a man that did not judge so well as himself. And this made him more irresolute than the conjuncture of his affairs would admit. If he had been of a rougher and more imperious nature, he would have found more respect and duty; and his not applying some severe cures to approaching evils proceeded from the lenity of his nature and the tenderness of his conscience, which in all cases of blood made him choose the softer way, and not hearken to severe counsels, how reasonably soever urged. This only restrained him from pursuing his advantage in the first Scots expedition, when, humanly speaking, he might have reduced that nation to the most slavish obedience that could have been wished. But no man can say he had then many who advised him to it, but to the contrary; by a wonderful indisposition all his Council had had to fighting or any other fatigue. He was always an immoderate lover of the Scottish nation, having not only been born there, but educated by that people, and besieged by them always, having few English about him until he was King; and the major number of his servants being still of those, who he thought could never fail him; and then no man had such an ascendant over him by the lowest and humblest insinuations as duke Hambleton [Hamilton] had.

As he excelled in all other virtues, so in temperance he was so strict that he abhorred all deboshry to that degree that at a great festival solemnity where he once was, when very many of the nobility of the English and Scots were entertained, being told by one who withdrew from thence what vast draughts of wine they drank, and that there was one earl who had drank most of the rest down, and was not himself moved or altered, the King said that he deserved to be hanged; and that earl coming shortly after into the room where his majesty was, in some gaiety, to show how unhurt he was from that battle, the King sent some one to bid him withdraw from his majesty's presence; nor did he in some days after appear before the King.

There were so many miraculous circumstances contributed to his ruin, that men might well think that heaven and earth conspired it, and that the stars designed it. Though he was from the first declension of his power so much betrayed by his own servants that there were very few who remained faithful to him, yet that treachery proceeded not from any treasonable purpose to do him any harm, but from particular and personal animosities against other men. And afterwards, the terror all men were under of the Parliament, and the guilt they were conscious of themselves, made them watch all opportunities to make themselves gracious to those who could do them good; and so they became spies upon their master, and from one piece of knavery were hardened and confirmed to undertake another, till at last they had no hope of preservation but by the destruction of their master. And after all this, when a man might reasonably believe that less than a universal defection of three