Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

be the discussions by the authorities of a beleaguered town on the best method of raising ransom-money.1

1 For instance, the following, in which it is to be understood that the reporter only sets down one or two leading words by way of memorandum of the purport of what each said :—

"The lords retire.

E. Bristoll. They say if they cannot live in one place, they will live in another.

They will come with an army able to obtain their demands.

Not fall into particulars of lessening their army, but, by way of inducement, to offer them £20,000 a-month.

E. Burks [Earl of Berkshire].-To speak with Mr Treasurer, who knows the country whether they are able.

Mr Treasurer.-Those four counties and Newcastle not able to pay that sum. No trade, but only for a month about £12,000 to be

raised.

They propose they will presently have money without victuals, which they cannot do.

They speak of recruiting-to bind them from recruiting, and to have a cessation of arms.

Let nothing be known to them of anything out of the counties. E. Holland. He supposes it is a proposition that the counties hereabout will find.

E. Burks. Whether offer it without consulting with Yorkshire. E. Holland.-It must be had, and therefore fit to be offered. Lord Saville.-They will retire, and if they say they cannot accept it, whether they will offer more.

If you offer it, it must be found, and in conclusion it goes upon all the kingdom.

If they say they cannot accept it, we to propose unto them our reasons-that we are their friends, never did them wrong.

To send to Newcastle to know whether they will receive this with some of the county.

In the mean time to treat of the other heads, and us to treat with the gentlemen of the counties.

Lord Saville.-Not to let the Scots know of our treaty with the counties.

Lord Wharton.-Let it be proposed to be only out of the counties in danger.

E. Holland.-To consider, if they refuse the sum, to think what to do, considering the great danger of the kingdom; but to give them no resolution this morning, but take into resolution to answer in the afternoon."-Bruce's Notes of the Treaty of Ripon, 33-35.

Again, on 24th October, as the meetings draw to a close :"The lords commissioners retire.

The gentlemen of Cumberland and Westmoreland are already pre.pared to come into contribution.

There was much haggling about the actual amount of money to be paid. It is not necessary that we should impute all the discussions to the mere mercenary spirit of parting with and pocketing so much coin. The Scots had further objects than taking a bribe to return home, and the furtherance of these objects was intimately connected not only with the amount to be paid to them, but the form and conditions of its payment. They asked £40,000 a-month, but this was refused. They then reduced their demand to £30,000-finally the allowance was fixed at £850 a-day. It was secured on obligations from corporations and landowners chiefly in the northern counties; but it was the hope of those who became thus liable, that Parliament would relieve them; and the prospect of the whole question coming into the hands of the new Parliament, to which the English nation looked with so much hope, was also a prospect full of stirring hope to the Scots.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Early in the sittings there was a singular incident. On the 8th of October the king desired that the treaty should be transferred to York. The reasons given were merely the "unhealthfulness of the town of Ripon, and for expediting" the treaty. The Scots suspected that there were other reasons. The king's army was at York, with Strafford at its head. They said: We cannot " conceave" or foresee "what danger may be apprehended in our going to York, and suffering ourselves and others who may be joined with us into the hands of an army commanded by the Lieutenant of Ireland, against whom, as a chief incendiary, according to our demands, which are the

A letter written to those counties, and this to be shown unto the Scots commissioners.

They have already called the gentlemen of these shires-Sir Patricius Curwen, Sir George Dawson, and Sir Philip Musgrave—and are now writing a letter which my Lord Wharton read.

E. Bristoll.-To add to this, they will procure the strength of the great council of York.

They will engage themselves to endeavour all means at London with the Parliament to see it performed."-Bruce's Notes of the Treaty of Ripon, 65.

subject of the treaty itself, we intend to insist, as is expressed in our remonstrance and declarator; who hath in the Parliament of Ireland proceeded against us as traitors and rebels-the best titles his lordship in his common talk is pleased to honour us with, whose commission is to subdue and destroy us, and who by all means and at all occasions presseth the breaking up of all treaties of peace, as fearing to be excluded in the end."1

When the matters of the pay of the army and the pacification were adjusted, another adjournment was proposed : it was to London, whither the English lords had to go to attend the new Parliament. No proposal could have been more apt to the views and fortunes of the Scots, and it was gladly accepted.

By this adjournment the destinies of the Scots nation were virtually thrown into the great game which was to be played over the whole empire. For some years, although a few incidents of the contest were peculiar to Scotland, the history of its policy and aims has to be looked on from the centre of a greater area, comprehending the three kingdoms, as they were for some time, and the Commonwealth, as the whole afterwards became. The duties of the historian of Scotland proper are thus in some measure for a time superseded, and fall on those who undertake the history of the great civil war.

Bruce's Notes, 26.

317

CHAPTER LXXIII.

CHARLES I.

ADJOURNMENT OF THE TREATY TO LONDON-SCOTS COMMISSIONERS THERE THEIR POPULARITY—THE LONG PARLIAMENT -FALL OF STRAFFORD AND LAUD CONTESTS IN THE NORTH MONRO IN ABERDEEN-ARGYLE'S BANDS IN THE WEST-RAVAGE THE NORTHERN LOWLANDS - THE GREAT PARLIAMENT OF 1641-THE KING'S PRESENCE-CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES-COMMITTEE OF ESTATESMONTROSE AND ARGYLE-THE INCIDENT AND THE RECRIMINATIONS -MONTROSE'S CHANGE-NEWS OF THE IRISH OUTBREAK - THE SUSPICIONS AGAINST THE KING THE USE OF THE GREAT SEAL OF SCOTLAND-THE SCOTS ARMY IN IRELAND UNDER LESLIE AND MONRO-THE MASSACRE-THE RUMOURS AND TERRORS IN SCOTLAND-THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT-MONTROSE'S SCHEME -GATHERS A HIGHLAND ARMY -ARGYLE AT INVERLOCHY BATTLES OF TIBBERMUIR AND KILSYTH-HIS FORCE SCATTERED BY LESLIE AT PHILIPHAUGH.

[ocr errors]

THE Scots commissioners were one of the chief centres round which gathered the mighty excitement with which London was then seething. When they had severally taken up their abodes, mostly in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, the city of London desired the honour of receiving them as guests. A house was assigned to them so close to the Church of St Anthony, or St Antholin, as it is popularly termed, that there was a passage communicating between the church and the house. Henderson, Blair, and Baillie gave their ministrations in that church with zeal and patience, and were repaid by popular admiration, as Clarendon says: To hear those sermons there was so great a conflux and resort-by the citizens

66

out of humour and faction, by others of all qualities out of curiosity, and by some that they might the better justify the contempt they had of them-that from the first appearance of day in the morning on every Sunday, to the shutting in of the light, the church was never empty. They, especially the women, who had the happiness to get into the church in the morning (they who could not, hang upon or about the windows without, to be auditors or spectators), keeping their places till the afternoon's exercise was finished."1

Coming as the assured allies of the Long Parliament, they were at once to witness the downfall of their greatest enemies. The blow fell first on Strafford. 66 He came but on Monday to town late; on Tuesday rested; on Wednesday came to Parliament, but ere night he was caged. Intolerable pride and oppression cries to heaven for a vengeance. The Lower House closed their doors; the Speaker keeped the keys till his accusation was completed." The Ayrshire minister, whose fortune it was to see so much of history, tells how Strafford came forth into custody through the crowd "all gazing, no man capping to him, before whom that morning the greatest of England would have stood dis-covered." 2 The temptation is strong to follow the same pen in picturesque description of the impeachment; but it is a passage that belongs to a wider history, and must be forborne.

Some of the offences charged against Strafford were founded on the relations of England with Scotland; but it would seem that these were inserted rather to interest and propitiate the Scots commissioners than really to give weight to the impeachment. They are slight and rather incoherent, balancing ill with the desperate designs of tyranny and ambition, at the root of the other charges. He had called the Scots "rebels" and "traitors." He said their demands justified war-he was ready to lead an Irish force against them. Then, what seems scarcely in the same tenor, as lieutenant-general in the north, he "did not provide for the defence of the town of New

1 History, i. 190; ed. 1843, p. 76. 2 Baillie's Letters, i. 272.

« AnteriorContinuar »