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members, and an Order in Council bade the Lord Mayor and Aldermen to secure the person who, on the night of the panic, had dared to call out the trained bands without authority.1

The Committee demands a quard fron the City.

In the face of this danger the Committee cut the knot of the long-agitated question of the guard. A resolution was passed declaring it to be legal to require the sheriffs to bring the force of the county for the security of Parliament. It was further resolved that, as there was no law in existence on the subject of the militia, the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen, and the Common Council ought 'on this pressing and extraordinary occasion' to appoint the officers and to raise men.2

Jan. 9. A Sunday

The next day was Sunday. It is easy to imagine the sermons that were preached, and the quiet, heartfelt joy at the great deliverance, not unmixed with proud satisfaction at the part played by the City in guarding the Commons of England from harm.

in the City,

Jan. 1o. Skippon appointed to command.

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On Monday morning Philip Skippon, the Captain of the Artillery Garden, was appointed Sergeant-Major-General, to take the command of the City trained bands. A pious, practical soldier, who had risen from the ranks, he was the very man to command a Puritan force. Come, my boys," he once said when battle was approaching, "my brave boys, let us pray heartily and fight heartily. I will run the same fortunes and hazards with you.' He was now ordered to raise a guard for offence or defence. The request of the Commons' Committee, on which this authority was conferred, was at last backed by a similar request from a Committee of the Lords. All the constituted

Offer of the seamen and mariners.

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authorities were now against Charles. The popular current ran in the same direction. The seamen and mariners of the Thames offered to join in the defence of the Houses, and their offer was gladly accepted.

The King's answer, Rushworth, iv. 481. The Council to the Lord Mayor, Jan. 8, S. P. Dom.

Common Council Journal Book, xi. fol. 14.

• Whitelocke, 65.

A Common Council Journal Book, xi. fol. 15.

The five members in the Committee.

Further

arrangements for

come.

As soon as these arrangements had been made, the five members entered the Committee and received a hearty welSoon afterwards a deputation from the apprentices arrived to ask permission to join in the morrow's procession. The Committee, mindful of the alarm which might be caused by the re-appearance of these frolicsome lads upon the scene, gravely requested them to guard the City in the absence of their masters. Then came an announcement from Hampden, that some thousands of his constituents were on their way from Buckinghamshire with a petition. At first the Committee felt some anxiety at the approach of so numerous a body, but it was at last resolved to throw no opposition in their way. Finally an offer was accepted from the men of Southwark to guard their own side of the river.1

the return to Westminster.

Charles

By the time that these arrangements were completed Charles was no longer at Westminster. On the 9th he had become aware that it would be impossible to resist anxious for the return of the Coinmons. If there had been the Queen's safety. nothing else to influence him, the humiliation of remaining a defeated spectator of the triumph of his enemies. would have been too great to bear. But he was more anxious for the Queen's safety than for his own dignity. He told Heenvliet, the Agent of the Prince of Orange, that he was sure that the Commons intended to take his wife from him. He at once despatched a messenger to Holland, no doubt to beg for material help from the Prince of Orange.2 At the same time he wrote to Pennington, commanding him to send a ship to Portsmouth to await orders, and to obey no future directions which did not emanate from himself.3

The next morning Charles prepared to set out.

Holland

and Essex, together with Lady Carlisle, begged some Jan. 10. who were in the King's confidence to plead for delay. No one. would undertake the hopeless task. Heenvliet

'D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 313.

2 Heenvliet to the Prince of Orange, Jan. zme sér. iii. 500, iv. I. • Pennington to the

II,

14, Groen van Prinsterer,

21, 24

King, Jan. 11, S. P. Dom.

The King prepares to leave Whitehall.

was finally applied to. "Who would dare to do it?" was all the answer he could give. There must have been an unaccustomed air of firmness in that irresolute face. At that moment Charles stood by his wife. He had done nothing to raise her to truer, broader views of the world in which they both lived, because he had no true and broad views of his own. He could not even carry out per sistently her rash and petulant commands. But he could suffer with her tenderly and lovingly. Long afterwards, when she told how with a word of hers she had, as she believed, betrayed the secret of the design of surprising the five members, the memory of his self-restraint rose to her lips. "Never," she said, "did he treat me for a moment with less kindness than before it happened, though I had ruined him.” 2

The King and Queen

set out.

In loving affection the Royal pair set out on their long exile. Charles was never to see Whitehall again, till he entered it as a prisoner to prepare for death. Henrietta Maria was after many years to return to the scene of her early happiness, a sad widow amidst a world which knew her not. Charles's troubles had commenced already. Essex and Holland refused to follow him, and told him that his proper place was with his Parliament. They 'expressed their readiness to surrender their offices. This was, however, refused, and Charles started without them. When Hampton Court was reached no preparations had been made for their reception. That night the King and Queen had to sleep in one room with their three eldest children.3

Jan. 11. The return

The next morning London was the scene of joyous commotion. At one o'clock the members of the House, with the five heroes of the day amongst them, took boat to return to Westminster. They were surrounded by a multitude of gaily dressed boats, firing volleys as they passed along. On the north side the City trained bands marched westward with resolute purpose. In the midst of

of Parlia ment.

Heenvliet to the Prince of Orange, Jan. H, Groen van Prinsterer, 2me sér. iii. 500.

2 Madame de Motteville, Memoirs, ch. ix.

• Berners to Hobart, Jan. 17, Tanner MSS. lxiii. fol. 242.

them Mandeville was seated in a carriage. They bore aloft on their pikes a printed copy of that Protestation which, at the crisis of Strafford's fate, had rallied Englishmen to the cause of the Protestant religion and the liberty of the subject.'

That day witnessed Pym's greatest triumph. He was now King Pym indeed. He was no longer the chief of a party,

for he had the nation at his back. Both Houses Pym's triumph. of Parliament, now united, followed his bidding. Patiently and vigilantly he had stood upon the watch tower peering into the darkness to descry the fleeting and shapeless forms of anarchy and conspiracy. He had taught men to seek for the basis of law and order in Parliament rather than in the King. Yet for him, as for other men, the hour of triumph was but the hour of opportunity. Could he seize the moment as it passed, and make permanent that harmony which had so unexpectedly sprung up? Was this government by Parliament to acknowledge the limitations imposed on it by nature? Was it to be a means of imposing upon men the despotism of a majority, or was it to bow before the majesty of that true freedom which consists in the liberty of each individual man, to strive as seems best to himself after that ideal of duty which reveals itself in his soul? The Church question was still unsettled, and unhappily there was nothing in Pym to make it probable that he would solve it aright.

1 Bere to Pennington, Jan. 13, S. P. Dom. Giustinian's despatch, Jan. Ven. Transcripts, R. O. Rushworth, iv. 484. Clarendon, iv. 199.

14

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1642 Jan. 11. The King's

occupation

of Hull.

CHAPTER CIV.

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE MILITIA.

THE King's first act on the morning of his arrival at Hampton Court was a preparation for civil war, or, as he himself would have explained it, for the maintenance of his just authority against rebellion. It is probable that in plans for the his orders to Pennington on the day before with regard to Portsmouth, he had in view something more than the Queen's embarkation, and that he was already enabled to expect that Goring would place that fortress in his hands whenever he thought it desirable. now turned his thoughts upon a place still more important than Portsmouth. At Hull were still stored up the munitions which had been provided for the Scottish war, and the fort was also conveniently situated for the reception of those Danish troops of which he had wished to make use against the Scots, and of which he was now thinking of making use against his own sub

Newcastle to be Governor of Hull.

He

jects. He accordingly appointed the Earl of Newcastle to be Governor of Hull, and gave instructions to Captain Legg, the officer who in the summer had carried to the army the petition marked by the King's initials,' to hasten to the North to secure the submission of the citizens to their new governor. Special instructions were given to Nicholas to keep these orders a profound secret, and to forbear entering them in the signet office, according to the usual official course.2 There can be no reasonable doubt that if the

1 Vol. IX. p. 398.

2 The King to Nicholas, Jan. 11. Legg to Nicholas, Jan. 14, S. P. Dum.

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