tion, if there were some like Falkland, whose characters no ingenuity of malice can stain, there were others whom he would have done well to keep at a distance. Indeed he never seems to have recovered from the ill effects of his boyish affection for the romantic profligate Buckingham. Others, too, there were, like Laud, whom no virtue could in that age have saved from popular hatred; for they were Bishops. At the instigation of these perhaps well-meaning churchmen, he had exercised certain severities upon the Puritans, too slight to overawe, but amply sufficient to provoke, which the more fearful and the more violent represented as the earnest of a sweeping persecution. He thought that after a few examples had been made of the most refractory, the rest of the people would be quietly preached and catechised into uniformity of religious profession; a purpose which nothing but the slow operation of a Spanish Inquisition, or the exterminating sword of a Joshua ever can or will effect in the present state of the world. But his great and suicidal error was his authoritative interference with the Scotch churches. Had the Scotch had no religious scruple or prejudice, still their nationality would have forbad them to pray in words composed by English prelates. Thence arose the Covenant, the precedent of armed and successful resistance; the necessity of a Parliament; the exposure of Charles's want of military strength and art; and, directly or indirectly, all the train of evils that ended in the overthrow of the church and monarchy.

We cannot find that Fairfax sat in any Parliament previous to the breaking out of the war. When the King, having refused to part with the command of the militia, retired northward, and, arriving at York, set about raising a guard for his person (following therein the example of the Commons), Fairfax appeared at the head of a multitude of 100,000, with a petition, praying, or more properly commanding, his Majesty to desist from raising an army against his people, and to return and hearken to his Parliament. The King attempted to decline receiving this remonstrance, but was overtaken and surrounded on Heyworth Moor, where Sir Thomas laid hold of the pommel of his saddle, and thrust the petition into his hand. This, it must be owned, was a strange way to persuade the King that guards were unnecessary to his safety.

It was in Yorkshire that the first demonstration of actual hostility took place. The body-guard, which Hume only estimates at 600 men, but which popular apprehension exaggerated to 3000, was alleged in proof of the traiterous designs of the malignants; and the insolent conduct of some common soldiers, which Charles did every thing in his power to suppress and punish, was related in evidence on the King's

trial, to convict him of making war against his people. Charles arrived in York in March, 1642. On the 23d of April, 1643, the gates of Hull were shut against him. As this was naturally deemed an act of rebellion, Charles, attended by the flower of the Nobility, collected hastily what troops he could, and, after vainly attempting to buy off Sir John Hotham, made warlike demonstrations before that fortress. Sir John Hotham, though he rejected the violent measures proposed by his council of war, who advised that the royalists should be allowed to approach as if they were to be admitted into the garrison, and then cut off, resolved to hold out, and letting in the sea, laid the country for three miles round under water. The seige of Hull commenced on the 7th of July, and seems to have been raised about the 30th, when Charles returned to York. War being now inevitable, the Yorkshire gentry who were attached to the royal cause, wishing to remove the scene of action as far from their own estates as possible, prevailed on the King to march southward. Accordingly, after rejecting a proposal of the Commons, which amounted to little less than the abolition of of monarchy, and receiving a cargo of arms and ammunition, purchased by the Queen in Holland, he advanced to Nottingham, and there set up his standard, August 22.

By this time the Parliament had placed the command of the militia, and authority to raise forces in every county, in such hands as they esteemed trustworthy. The majority of the northern Peers were attached to the King's party, and probably Ferdinando Lord Fairfax was the most powerful adherent of the Parliament in those parts. Accordingly, he received their commission (still running in the King's name) to be General of the forces in the north, and his son, Sir Thomas, was appointed General of Horse under him.

We believe it was Marshall Scomberg who advised Bishop Burnet, in his history of his own times, to say as little as possible of fighting matters, lest he should expose bis ignorance to the ridicule of military men. It was very good counsel, and we shall follow it in this and every other life where military transactions are to be related. Where any thing characteristic occurs,―any thing that denotes the intrepidity, perseverence, generosity, or sagacity of our subjects, in connection with their military employments, we shall set it in as clear a light as possible; but in all that belongs to tactics we must be necessarily brief, and follow our guide's simplicity. Neither can we undertake to trace every movement of the forces under our General's command; for the purport and effect of these minute operations can only be estimated by an experienced eye, capable of representing to itself the relative position of all the numerous small bodies on both sides, whose stations dotted,

and whose motions intersected the country, and even then, unless the nature of the ground were faithfully depicted, which cannot be done in words, no adequate judgment could be formed.

Lord Fairfax left behind him "Short Memorials," not intended for the public eye, but for the satisfaction of his own relations, which, nevertheless, were published in 1699, by Bryan Fairfax, Esq., to prevent a surreptitious edition. They are not particularly creditable to his talents as an autobiographer, being written in a heavy, ungainly style, and interspersed with religious phrases, which though characteristic of that age, when men sang hymns to jigs, and marched to battle to psalm tunes, sound strange to modern ears, amid a recital of blood and rapine. But Fairfax doubtless believed that he was wielding "the sword of the Lord and Gideon," and appears to have died in the same comfortable faith. Unfortunately, these memoirs contain no account of any thing previous to the commencement of the war; beginning with a narrative of some petty actions in the autumn of 1642. His first exploit was driving a small detachment of royalists from Bradford to Leeds, whither in conjunction with captain Hotham, he marched a few days after, and compelled the enemy to retire upon York. In order to secure the West Riding, from whence the principal supplies were derived, he advanced to Tadcaster, with a design to guard the pass of Wetherby, which he maintained against an ineffectual attempt of Sir Thomas Glenham. Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, and Clifford, of Cumberland, united their forces at York, to the number of 9000, and resolved to fall on Tadcaster, which fort being judged untenable, the Fairfax's, father and son, risked an engagement; but, notwithstanding the advantage of ground, were worsted, after six hours hard fighting, and withdrew, in the night, to Selby. But the royalists always lost by want of discipline and vigilance what they gained by valour. Sir Thomas, three days after, by a night march, in the course of which he passed by several posts of the enemy, gained Bradford, and there intrenched himself. This was at the close of 1642, the first year of that memorable contest, which, though comparatively insignificant, as to the number of men engaged, the blood shed, and the martial deeds achieved, far exceeds all other civil wars, in the greatness of its moral interests and the noble qualities, both of head and heart, which it developed in all parties. We know not any portion of history which discloses so much of human nature, which detects so many of "the spirits that lie like truth," none from which rulers and subjects may derive so much wisdom, none which so emphatically asserts that "the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God."

In most of the conflicts which have divided nations against themselves, one side or other have been so wicked, or both so worthless, or

the points at issue so personal and valueless, that the recital of their progress and results merely amuses by variety of incident, or disgusts by sameness of depravity; but in the principles and the fortunes of the Cavaliers and the Roundheads, we still experience a real and vital concern. The warmth of passions, though abated, is not extinguished. We feel as if our own liberty, our own allegiance, our own honour and religion, were involved in the dispute.

At the opening of the year 1643, the King's affairs wore an aspect by no means unpromising. In the preceding summer, when he withdrew from the Metropolis, and found the gates of his own good town of Hull shut against him, he had neither ships nor men, nor money: every port in the kingdom, Newcastle excepted, was in the hands of his enemies ; the Lord Lieutenants, in whom the immediate power of raising troops was vested, were all their creatures; the power of the purse had been taken from him, and though the law was really on his side, yet so completely was the administration of it intercepted by the Parliament, and so skilfully had they turned the forms of law to their own purposes, that simple persons were not quite sure whether it was not rebellion to obey their sovereign. And here we may be permitted to remark how completely the unprovided condition in which Charles was found in this extremity confutes the assertions and the fears of those who justified their proceedings, upon rumours of armies, and martial preparations in England and Ireland, while in truth the King's adherents had scarce a weapon but the sword worn for fashion by their sides, or the antiquated furniture of their ancestral armories. That Charles wished to be free of Parliamentary controul there can be no doubt, any profession of his own notwithstanding; for he was a man, a King, and a High-church-man; but that he was plotting to make himself absolute by force of arms, there is no better proof than the reports of spies, the wild talk of a few hot-brained drunken Cavaliers, and the apprehensions of some who had indeed occasion to dread the exercise of his lawful prerogative. To these weak grounds of suspicion, we perhaps may add the secret insinuations of foreign states, particularly France and Sweden, then respectively governed by Richlieu and Oxenstierna, two of the profoundest politicians that ever lived.

Thus destitute was Charles when he refused to resign to the Parliament his right in the militia " even for an hour." The deep-headed leaders of the movement, who were not frightened with their own noise, anticipated no obstacle to their ambition, and thought, by forcing the sovereign to a base submission, above all, by involving his name in their purposed vengeance on his advisers, to deprive him at once of authority, friends, honour, and reputation, and would then have been satisfied to

propitiate the popular superstition in favour of royalty, by-keeping him as a pensioned pageant, as helpless and as useful as the automaton idol of a pagan priesthood, that nods and shakes its head as the manager pulls the string, and seems to utter what the ventriloquist squeaks out of its mouth. But it was not so ordered. It was ordained that their victory should be purchased with much blood; that the Constitution should rather suffer a stab, and suspended animation, from which its tenacious vitality soon recovered, than a shameful wound that would have emasculated and degraded its nature. The majority of the nobles, the country gentlemen, the agricultural population in those districts that were remote from the contagion of the metropolis, the episcopal clergy, and the Universities, together with the Catholics, and a pretty large minority of the mob, who loved bear-baiting and May games, and "cakes and ale," better than fasts and sermons, still clung to the King. The train-bands of some counties were raised for his service. The nobility armed their tenants and retainers, the gentry formed themselves into troops, the Prince of Orange induced experienced officers to take command of his levies, the colleges sent their plate to be coined for his use; light vessels, freighted with arms and ammunition, purchased abroad by the Queen, running into the shallow creeks, where the Parliament's ships could not follow, landed and disposed of their cargoes much after the manner that contraband goods are run in our times. Charles soon found himself in a condition to face the army of Essex, whom the Parliament had appointed their General-in-Chief, swearing "to live and die with him." A slight skirmish near Worcester, and the indecisive battle of Edge-Hill, were followed by the advance of the royal army upon London. Banbury and Reading were taken; Oxford joyfully received the host of the "Defender of the Faith." A treaty was proposed, and it is not improbable, that in the panic, reasonable terms might have been obtained. But while matters were in train for a conference, and the ruling party had prohibited their troops from acting on the offensive, a rash attack on the regiment stationed at Brentford, ascribed by the royalist historians to the unruly impetuosity of Prince Rupert, gave colour to a suspicion of treachery, and extinguished the last sparks of loyalty in the City, which had all along been the head quarters of disaffection. After this the King retired to Oxford, and a negociation actually commenced, which could have been only intended by each party to throw the guilt of blood on their antagonists; for the conditions proposed by the Parliament were such as no one could expect a King, with a devoted and increasing army, to accept, nor could the King have expected that any better would be offered.* When once the sword is

It was during this abortive negociation, that the Puritan Parliament first