tion from the Common Council went to meet it, and placed all the forces and aid of the City at its disposal. Its sittings were as full of business as those of the House, every member of which had a right to be present; the place where the five members had retired was close by, and nothing was done without their knowledge and advice. They even went several times to the Committee, and the citizens loudly cheered them as they passed, proud to have them there, and to be the sole protectors of their representatives. In the midst of this triumph of the Commons, their leaders skilfully managed to augment their ardour, by keeping up their fears. Every hour the Commons and the City drew closer and gave mutual courage to each other. At last, by its own sole authority, it is said, and as if it had been the House itself, the Committee published a declaration containing the result of its inquiry; and the Common Council addressed a petition to the king, complaining of evil councillors, of the cavaliers, of the papists, of the new Lieutenant of the Tower, adopting in a high tone the cause of the five members, and demanding all the reforms which the Commons had merely touched upon.

The king was alone, shut up in Whitehall, deserted by his more worthy partisans. Even the cavaliers, now intimidated, had dispersed or were keeping silence. Charles attempted to answer the petition of the Common Council, and once

more ordered the arrest of the accused members. (Jan. 8.) But his answers and his orders were alike to no purpose. He learned that the House would resume its sittings in two days, and that the five members were to be brought back to Westminster in procession by the militia, the people, and even the watermen of the Thames, of whose entire affection he had thought himself certain till then. "What," said he, angrily, "do these water-rats, too, forsake me ?" and this speech, soon repeated among the men, was received by them as an insult calling for revenge.

Abandoned, humiliated, irritated at the general cry which daily assailed him without one voice on his side to oppose it, Charles could not endure the idea of seeing his enemies pass in triumph before his palace. The queen, alternately wild with anger and trembling with fear, begged him to depart; the royalists and messengers who had been sent to different parts of the kingdom promised him strength and safety elsewhere: the cavaliers, defeated in London, boasted of their influence in their counties; away from the parliament, they said, the king would be free; without the king, what could the parliament do? The resolution was taken. It was agreed to retire first to Hampton Court, and afterwards farther if it should be found necessary; secret orders were sent to the governors of several places, whose devotion was to be depended on; the Earl

The day after his departure, about two in the afternoon, the Thames was covered with armed vessels, escorting the five members back to Westminster; a crowd of boats followed decked out with flags, and filled with citizens; along each bank of the river marched the London militia, bearing the last declarations of parliament at the point of their pikes; an officer trained in the army of Gustavus Adolphus, Captain Skippon, had the day before been appointed to command them. He was a rough unlearned man, but bold, of austere morals, and very popular in the city. An innumerable crowd closed this procession; as they passed Whitehall they stopped, shouting," Where now are the king and his cavaliers? what has become of them ?"

On their arrival at Westminster Hall, the five members hastened to eulogise the devotion of the city in the public cause, and the Sheriffs were brought into the House, and thanked by the Speaker. As they departed another procession came up; four thousand knights, gentlemen, and freeholders, on horseback, arrived from Buckinghamshire, Hampden's native coun

worthy representative; they had also a petition for the Upper House, and a third for the king, and all wore on their hats a printed oath to live and die with the parliament, whoever might be its enemies. On all sides burst forth | that proud and joyful enthusiasm which encourages and demands the boldest resolutions on the part of the leaders of the people; the Commons gave way to it with judicious energy, as the pilot to the violent but favourable wind. In a few hours they had voted that no member, under any pretext, could be arrested without their consent; a bill was passed, giving to both Houses the right of adjourning, in case of need, to any place they might think fit; an address was drawn up to the king, praying that it would please him to withdraw from Sir John Byron the command of the Tower; and until an answer should be received, Skippon was ordered to place guards round that fortress, and to watch its approaches carefully. Letters were despatched to Goring, the governor of Portsmouth, forbidding him to receive into that town either troops or ammunition without the authority of parliament; Sir John Hotham, a rich and influential gentleman of Yorkshire, was ordered to set out at once to take the command of Hull, an important place, the key to the north of England, and containing large arsenals.

numbers could not increase, the enemy's might, for they had not only their garrisons-Warwick, Coventry, and Banbury within distance, but all that country so devoted to them, that they had all provisions brought to them without the least trouble; whereas, on the other side, the people were so disaffected to the king's party, that they had carried away or hid all their provisions, insomuch that there was neither meat for man nor horse; and the very smiths hid themselves, that they might not be compelled to shoe horses, of which in those stony ways there was great need. This proceeded not from any radical malice, or disaffection to the king's cause, or his person, though it is true that circuit in which this battle was fought being very much in the interest of the Lord Say and the Lord Brooke, was the most eminently corrupted of any county in England, but by the reports and infusions which the other very diligent party had wrought into the people's belief, "that the Cavaliers were of a fierce, bloody, and licentious disposition, and that they committed all manner of cruelty upon the inhabitants of those places where they came, of which robbery was the least," so that the poor people thought there was no other way to preserve their goods than by hiding them out of the way, which was confessed by them when they found how much that information had wronged them by making them so injurious to their friends. And, there

fore, where the army rested a day, they found much better entertainment at parting than when they came, for it will not be denied that there was no person of honour or quality who paid not punctually and exactly for what they had; and there was not the least violence or disorder among the common soldiers on their march which escaped exemplary punishment, so that at Bromicham, a town so generally wicked that it had risen upon small parties of the king's, and killed or taken them prisoners and sent them to Coventry, declaring a more peremptory malice to his majesty than any other place, two soldiers were executed for having taken some small trifle of no value out of a house, whose owner was at that time in the rebels' army. So strict was the discipline in this army, when the other, without control, practised all the dissoluteness imaginable. But the march was so fast, that the leaving a good reputation behind them was no harbinger to provide for their better reception in the next quarters, so that their wants were so great at the time when they came to Edgehill, that there were very many companies of the common soldiers who had scarce eaten bread in eight-and-forty hours before. The only way to cure this was a victory, and therefore the king gave the word, though it was late, the enemy keeping their ground to receive him without advancing at all.

In this hurry there was

an