quence of some general notion that justice was on the side of the parliament, became loud and active in the cause of popular rights. There was also one Chadwick, who, by the aid of the utmost duplicity, of a voluble tongue, and of all possible acts of meanness, had risen from the place of trenchard-scraper to be recorder of the town. His money, which he generally acquired like a knave, he as commonly spent like a fool; and was an impure sensualist to a degree that does not admit of description. Chadwick, however, never ceased to boast of being a great patriot, and a great saint. These men found no unfitting ally in one captain Palmer, a presbyterian minister, whose intolerance and vanity disposed him to employ himself in destroying his enemies rather than in praying for them. The folly and turbulence of these disinterested worthies often threw the little commonwealth of Nottingham into confusion, and made it exceedingly difficult to preserve discipline, so as to give effect to military operations. But opposed to the infirmities and vices of such men were the good sense, the real piety, and the generous patriotism of Pigott, Widmerpoole, and Lomax; the untainted honour of the governor, colonel Hutchinson; the Roman heroism of his consort; and the wisdom in council and courage in action which gave so much dignity to the many virtues of Sir Francis Thornhagh-a gentleman who fell some years later at the battle of Preston, in the moment of victory, and whose last request was that his friends would stand aside and allow him to gaze on the tide of battle as it turned against the invaders of his country. But such are the varieties of character, and such the elements of disunion, that never fail to make their appearance in times of civil commotion, and which must always render it so difficult to prescribe to such movements, either the course which they shall take, or the point at which they shall stop.

Methods of raising

money.

Before we pass from this review of the civil and military affairs previous to the battle of Naseby, to consider the ecclesiastical proceedings which belong to the same period, it may be proper to mention some of the expedients adopted by the two parties for the purpose of raising a revenue. In the commencement of the war, the voluntary contributions of their respective partisans were of considerable amount, and, in some cases, bespoke the most generous enthusiasm. But the long continuance of the struggle was as contrary to the expectations of those who contributed to it, as of those who were engaged in it; and these spontaneous offerings soon gave place to the more regular supplies that were demanded in the name of the king or of the parliament through those parts of the country where their respective authorities prevailed. Loans also of large extent were obtained, upon the usual interest,-the parliament pledging the public faith; and the king his royal word, or portions of the crown lands, for repayment. The estates of delinquents formed another source of supply, persons who had distinguished themselves by their support of

one party being liable to heavy forfeitures when falling under the power of the other. By advice of the parliament at Oxford, Charles issued his privy seals, and the sum thus obtained was not less than a hundred thousand pounds. But the parliament at Westminster derived greater and more permanent assistance from the laws of excise, which were introduced at this crisis merely as a temporary expedient. Without the wealth of the capital the cause of the parliament would probably have failed from the want of means, but its resources in that quarter always placed it on vantage ground in this respect as compared with the king*.

The ecclesiastical affairs of this period were various and important. From the commencement of the civil war the greater numEcclesiastical ber of the bishops were under impeachment, and the jurisaffairs rela- diction of that order was invaded at all points by the re

tive position forming spirit of the commons. But the commons could

of the civil

and ecclesias- not need to be apprised that there must be some limit to tical power. their interference in ecclesiastical matters, and that the clergy who had thrown off the yoke of their episcopalian masters with so much indignation, were not likely to prove altogether passive in the hands of the civil power unless very prudently managed. Those high church notions with respect to the province of the magistrate, which regarded him as little more than the servant of the church, were not altogether confined to such men as Laud and Cosens, or to their immediate disciples. Many of the presbyterian clergy had adopted the substance of them. It behoved the parliament, therefore, to proceed with caution in reference to this body; and, in fact, the conduct of both parties manifested considerable jealousy and circumspection. The majority of the present clergy, in escaping from the hands of the prelates, were not prepared to submit to a similar vassalage from the hands of the secular assemblies at Westminster; and those assemblies, on the other hand, while removing the old ecclesiastical authorities, which had been found so inimical to general liberty, were concerned that measures should be taken to prevent the establishment of any system that might tend to perpetuate the same evils. It will appear, however, that in the adjustment of these different pretensions at the present juncture, the balance of authority was, upon the whole, much in favour of the magistrate.

To gratify this pretension on the part of the clergy, and at the same Assembly of time to intimate the bounds to which it must be restricted, it was arranged that an assembly of divines should meet at Westminster to deliberate on the affairs of religion, some

divines.

June.

*Rushworth, v. 71, 84, 85, 118, 124, 150, 309, 361. Charles not only adopted the excise, and other expedients, resorted to by his opponents, but issued proclamations prohibiting compliance with any tax imposed by the parliament, all trade with the capital, and even the payment of rents to persons in arms against him. Ibid. 313, 364, 365. Clarendon, iv. 52, 418.

thing in the manner of a house of convocation. The power of this assembly, however, was not in the least degree legislative, but strictly limited to counsel or advice; nor were its members to enter upon the discussion of any matter not proposed to them for that purpose by the lords or the commons. Their debates, moreover, on each topic were not to be made public until concluded, and no matter agreed to by them could be established or enforced without the sanction of the two houses of parliament. In this manner, that complete subjection of the spiritual power to the secular, which from the age of Elizabeth the commons had declared to be according to law, was fully exemplified. The church, whether governed by princely bishops or homely presbyters, was to be the dependent of the state; and the assembly of divines, beguiled apparently by the semblance of authority which their deliberative character conferred upon them, seemed to be content with this arrangement. The clergy admitted to the assembly, one hundred and twenty in number, were chosen equally from the different counties, and were indebted for their election to the nomination of parliament, not to any With these were associated ten peers and suffrage of their brethren. twenty commoners, and some other persons at the pleasure of the two houses*.

The prevailing sentiment of this body, judging from the result of its On points of church government the labours, was strongly calvinistic. diversity of its opinions accorded more nearly with the state of parties through the nation. Several prelates and episcopal clergymen were nominated to assist in its proceedings, but they soon relinquished the doubtful honour of attending. The presbyterians formed the great majority, and found their chief difficulty in contending with a small body of returned exiles, who had embraced the principles of the independents, and whose friends in parliament had important reasons for procuring their admission to this theological arena.

There was, indeed, a second party who gave the rigid presbyterians considerable trouble, consisting of persons who would not The Erastians. only have deprived the church of all secular jurisdic

tion, but would have made it dependent in all its internal proceedings on rules supplied to it by the civil power, protesting especially against the whole system of church censures except as sanctioned by the law of the magistrate. These principles, which not only allied the church with the state, but identified them, too much in the manner of the ancient Jew or the modern Arab, were those maintained by the Erastians, who found their defenders among the lawyers, particularly in Whitelocke and Selden †.

*Rushworth, v. 337-339. Baillie, i. 398, 402.

"The most of the house Baillie, i. 420. In April, 1645, this writer observes :of commons are downright Erastians; they are like to create us more woe than all the sects in England. This man (Selden) is the head of the Erastians; his glory

Clarendon affirms that most of the clergy admitted to this synod were The pres"of no other reputation than of malice to the church of byterians. England;" but opposed to that statement is the testimony of Baxter, who, without obliging us to approve all their extravagances, would lead us to regard the assembly of divines as possessed of as much learning, and of more piety than had at any time distinguished that portion of our ecclesiastical convocations which consisted of delegates from among the parochial clergy. But the writer who speaks of the presbyterians generally, so as to justify this conclusion, has added:-"I disliked the course of some of the more rigid of them, who drew too near to the way of prelacy by grasping at a kind of secular power, not using it themselves, but binding the magistrate to confiscate or imprison men, merely because they were excommunicated; and so corrupting the true discipline of the church, and turning the communion of the saints into the communion of the multitude, who must keep in the church for fear of being undone in the world. I disliked also some of the presbyterians that they were not tender enough to dissenting brethren, but too much against liberty, as others were too much for it, and thought to do by votes and numbers, what should have been done by love and reason*."

The dissenting brethren to whom Baxter adverts as too much conThe Indepen-cerned for liberty were the independents, of whom Clarendon dents. says," they were more learned and rational than the presbyterians, and though they had not so great congregations of the common people, yet they were followed by the more substantial and wealthy citizens, as well as by others of better condition." Baxter, also, though rarely so much prejudiced as when touching upon sectaries, observes of this body, that "most of them were zealous, very many learned, discreet, and godly men, fit to be serviceable in the churcht." The independent ministers in the assembly never amounted to more than ten or twelve, but these were all men practised in the work of discussion, and who, having exposed themselves to the sufferings of exile for liberty of conscience, were not to be dismayed in pleading for that liberty by the storms of the majority arrayed against them at Westminster. Baillie, one of their most violent antagonists, says of them :—“ Truly they speak much, and exceedingly well: if the cause

is most in Jewish learning; he avows everywhere that the Jewish church and state were all one, and so in England it must be, the parliament is the church. If L'Emperour would beat down this man's arrogance, as very well he can, to show, out of the rabbins, that the Jewish state was diverse from the church, and that they held the censure of excommunication among them, and a double sanhedrim, one civil, and another ecclesiastical; if he would confound him with Hebrew testimonies, it would lay Selden's vanity, who is very insolent for his oriental literature." ii. 96, 107. Whitelocke, 163, 164. Neal, iii. 116, 117, 236, 242.

*Life and Times. Part i. 140-143.

+ Life and Times, Part i. 140-143.

were good, the men have plenty of learning, wit, eloquence, and, above all, boldness and stiffness to make it out*."

The independents complained of the presbyterians, that, while so much opposed to any gradation in ecclesiastical offices, they insisted on the establishment of gradations in ecclesiastical authority; that, resisting the government of the church by bishops, deans, and archdeacons, they contended for its government by means of presbyteries, classes, and synods; and that, while they condemned the subjection of the congregations of a province or a nation to one man under the name of a primate as an invention of antichrist, they pleaded for the subjection of all the churches in a nation to a single tribunal called a general assembly, insisting that the decisions of that assembly should not only be binding on the absent, but enforced by civil penalties. In all this they professed to see great inconsistency, and the elements of the same system of oppression which it had cost so much blood and treasure to overthrow. They could agree with their opponents in depriving the national worship of the superstitious observances included in it; but no secret influence, no violence of opposition, could induce them to abandon the ground they had taken in declaring every christian congregation to be a church independent of all foreign controul, and in "avowing that, by God's command, the magistrate is discharged to put the least discourtesy on any man, Jew, Turk, Papist, Socinian, or whatever, for his religion +." Weeks and even months passed in 'discussions on this point, and still these men were in the field, amidst the fiercer onsets of their antagonists, loud complaints from Scotland, and frequent admonitions from the parliament.

When their adversaries were about to accomplish by votes what they had failed to achieve by other means, the weaker party narrowed their claims to one point, viz., that, whatever the established religion might be, it should not be without a provision for the toleration of those who conscientiously dissented from it. If the state, said they, must provide for presbyterianism, let it at least grant to independency the liberty to provide for itself. This proposal led to the formation of a committee, consisting of a deputation from the assembly, from the Scottish commis

Letters, i. 436.

+Baillie, ii. 18. "We hope, if once we had peace, with God's help, and with the spirit of meekness, mixed with a little justice, to get the most of these erroneous spirits reduced. The independents have set up a number of private congregations in the city. We hope God will provide remedies for that evil, independency, the mother and true fountain of the church's distractions here. As yet their pride continues, but we are hopeful the parliament will not own their way so much as to tolerate it." Ibid. 24, 26, 49. So completely had these men imbibed the spirit of intolerance, that there was scarcely an act in the obtrusive tyranny of Laud himself which they were not capable of imitating. Thus the merchant adventurers were required to send the Covenant "to all of their company at home and abroad, and return the names of such as should refuse to take it ;" and the same was to be done in the case of "all physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries in London, and the several counties." Whitelocke, 88, 140.