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many gentlemen of the court armed with | something ludicrous in the idea of battalions swords. composed of apprentices and shopkeepers, and officered by aldermen. But, in the early part of the seventeenth century, there was no standing army in the island; and the militia of the metropolis was not inferior in training to the militia of other places. A city which could furnish many thousands of armed men, abounding in natural courage, and not absolutely untinctured with military discipline, was a formidable auxiliary in times of internal dissension. On several occasions during the civil war, the trainbands of London distinguished themselves

ticular, they repelled the onset of fiery Rupert, and saved the army of the Parliament from destruction.

He walked up Westminster Hall. At the southern door of that vast building, his attendants divided to the right and left, and formed a lane to the door of the House of Commons. He knocked, entered, darted a look towards the place which Pym usually occupied; and seeing it empty, walked up to the table. The speaker fell on his knee. The members rose and uncovered their heads in profound silence, and the king took his seat in the chair. He looked round the house. But the five members were nowhere to be seen. He interrogated the speaker. The speaker answer-highly; and at the battle of Newbury, in par ed, that he was merely the organ of the House, and had neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak, but according to their direction. The baffled tyrant muttered a few feeble sentences The people of this great city had long been about his respect for the laws of the realm thoroughly devoted to the national cause. Great and the privileges of Parliament, and retired numbers of them had signed a protestation, in As he passed along the benches, several reso- which they declared their resolution to defend lute voices called out audibly, "Privilege!" the privileges of Parliament. Their enthuHe returned to Whitehall with his company siasm had of late begun to cool. The imof bravoes, who, while he was in the house, peachment of the five members, and the insult had been impatiently waiting in the lobby for offered to the House of Commons, inflamed it the word, cocking their pistols, and crying, to fury. Their houses, their purses, their "Fall on." That night he put forth a procla-pikes, were at the command of the Commons. mation, directing that the posts should be stop- London was in arms all night. The next day ped, and that no person should, at his peril, venture to harbour the accused members. Hampden and his friends had taken refuge in Coleman street. The city of London was indeed the fastness of public liberty; and was, in those times, a place of at least as much importance as Paris during the French revolution. The city, properly so called, now consists in a great measure of immense warehouses and counting-houses, which are frequented by traders and their clerks during the day, and left in almost total solitude during the night. It was then closely inhabited by three hundred thousand persons, to whom it was not merely a place of business, but a place of constant residence. This great body had as complete a civil and military organization as if it had been an independent republic. Each citizen A violent and sudden revulsion of feeling, had his company; and the companies, which both in the House and out of it, was the effect now seem to exist only for the delectation of of the late proceedings of the king. The Opepicures and of antiquaries, were then for- position regained in a few hours all the asmidable brotherhoods; the members of which cendency which it had lost. The constitutional were almost as closely bound together as the royalists were filled with shame and sorrow. members of a Highland clan. How strong They felt that they had been cruelly deceived these artificial ties were, the numerous and by Charles. They saw that they were unjustly, valuable legacies anciently bequeathed by citi- but not unreasonably, suspected by the nation. zens to their corporations abundantly prove. Clarendon distinctly says, that they perfectly The municipal offices were filled by the most detested the councils by which the king had opulent and respectable merchants of the king- been guided, and were so much displeased and dom. The pomp of the magistracy of the dejected at the unfair manner in which he had capital was second only to that which sur-treated them, that they were inclined to retire rounded the person of the sovereign. The Londoners loved their city with that patriotic love which is found only in small communities, like those of ancient Greece, or like those which arose in Italy during the middle ages. The numbers, the intelligence, the wealth of the citizens, the democratic form of their local government, and their vicinity to the court and and to the Parliament, made them one of the most formidable bodies in the kingdom. Even as soldiers, they were not to be despised. In an age in which war is a profession, there is

the shops were closed; the streets were filled with immense crowds. The multitude pressed round the king's coach, and insulted him with opprobrious cries. The House of Commons, in the mean time, appointed a committee to sit in the city, for the purpose of inquiring into the circumstances of the late outrage. The members of the committee were welcomed by a deputation of the common council. Merchant Tailors' Hall, Goldsmiths' Hall, and Grocers' Hall were fitted up for their sittings. A guard of respectable citizens, duly relieved twice a day, was posted at their doors. The sheriffs were charged to watch over the safety of the accused members, and to escort them to and from the committee with every mark of honour.

from his service. During the debates on this subject, they preserved a melancholy silence. To this day, the advocates of Charles take care to say as little as they can about his visit to the House of Commons; and, when they cannot avoid mention of it, attribute to infatuation an act, which, on any other supposition, they must admit to have been a frightful crime.

The Commons, in a few days, openly defied the king, and ordered the accused members to attend in their places at Westminster, and to resume their parliamentary duties. The

citizens resolved to bring back the champions of liberty in triumph before the windows of Whitehall. Vast preparations were made both by land and water for this great festival.

The king had remained in his palace, humbled, dismayed, and bewildered; " feeling," says Clarendon, "the trouble and agony which usually attend generous and magnanimous minds upon their having committed errors;" feeling, we should say, the despicable repentance which attends the bungling villain, who, having attempted to commit a crime, finds that he has only committed a folly. The populace hooted and shouted all day before the gates of the royal residence. The wretched man could not bear to see the triumph of those whom he had destined to the gallows and the quartering block. On the day preceding that which was fixed for their return, he fled, with a few attendants, from that palace, which he was never to see again till he was led through it to the scaffold.

On the 11th of January, the Thames was covered with boats, and its shores with a gazing multitude. Armed vessels decorated with streamers were ranged in two lines from London Bridge to Westminster Hall. The members returned by water in a ship manned by sailors who had volunteered their services. The trainbands of the city, under the command of the sheriffs, marched along the Strand, attended by a vast crowd of spectators, to guard the avenues to the House of Commons; and thus, with shouts and loud discharges of ordnance, the accused patriots were brought back by the people whom they had served, and for whom they had suffered. The restored members, as soon as they had entered the House, expressed, in the warmest terms, their gratitude to the citizens of London. The sheriffs were warmly thanked by the speaker in the name of the Commons; and orders were given that a guard, selected from the trainbands of the city, should attend daily to watch over the safety of the Parliament.

The excitement had not been confined to London. When intelligence of the danger to which Hampden was exposed reached Buckinghamshire, it excited the alarm and indignation of the people. Four thousand freeholders of that county, each of them wearing in his bat a copy of the protestation in favour of the privileges of Parliament, rode up to London to defend the person of their beloved representative. They came in a body to assure Parliament of their full resolution to defend its privileges. Their petition was couched in the strongest terms. "In respect,” said they, "of that latter attempt upon the honourable House of Commons, we are now come to offer our service to that end, and resolved, in their just defence, to live and die."

A great struggle was clearly at hand. Hampden had returned to Westminster much changed. His influence had hitherto been exerted rather to restrain than to moderate the zeal of his party. But the treachery, the contempt of law, the thirst for blood, which the king had now shown, left no hope of a peaceable adjustment. It was clear that Charles must be either a puppet or a tyrant, that no obligation of love

or of honour could bind him, and that the only way to make him harmless was to make him powerless.

The attack which the king had made on the five members was not merely irregular in manner. Even if the charges had been preferred legally, if the grand jury of Middlesex had found a true bill, if the accused persons had been arrested under a proper warrant, and at a proper time and place, there would still have been in the proceeding enough of perfidy and injustice to vindicate the strongest measures which the Opposition could take. To impeach Pym and Hampden was to impeach the House of Commons. It was notoriously on account of what they had done as members of that House that they were selected as objects of vengeance; and in what they had done as members of that House, the majority had concurred. Most of the charges brought against them were common between them and the Parliament. They were accused, indeed, and it may be with reason, of encouraging the Scotch army to invade England. In doing this, they had committed what was, in strictness of law, a high offence; the same offence which Devonshire and Shrewsbury committed in 1688. But the king had promised pardon and oblivion to those who had been the principals in the Scotch insurrection. Did it then consist with his honour to punish the accessaries? He had bestowed marks of his favour on the leading Covenanters. He had given the great seal of Scotland to Lord Loudon, the chief of the rebels, a marquisate to the Earl of Argyle, an earldom to Lesley, who had brought the Presbyterian army across the Tweed. On what principle was Hampden to be attainted for advising what Lesley was ennobled for doing? In a court of law, of course, no Englishman could plead an amnesty granted to the Scots. But, though not an illegal, it was surely an inconsistent and a most unkingly course, after pardoning the heads of the rebellion in one kingdom, to hang, draw, and quarter their accomplices in another.

The proceedings of the king against the five members, or rather against that Parliament which had concurred in almost all the acts of the five members, was the cause of the civil war. It was plain that either Charles or the House of Commons must be stripped of all real power in the state. The best course which the Commons could have taken would perhaps have been to depose the king; as their ancestors had deposed Edward the Second and Richard the Second, and as their children afterwards deposed James. Had they done this, had they placed on the throne a prince whose character and whose situation would have been a pledge for his good conduct, they might safely have left to that prince all the constitutional prerogatives of the crown; the command of the armies of the state; the power of making peers; the power of appointing ministers; a veto on bills passed by the two Houses. Such a prince, reigning by their choice, would have been under the necessity of acting in conformity with their wishes. But the public mind was not ripe for such a measure. There was no

Duke of Lancaster, no Prince of Orange, no great and eminent person, near in blood to the throne, yet attached to the cause of the people. Charles was then to remain king; and it was therefore necessary that he should be king only in name. A William the Third, or a George the First, whose title to the crown was identical with the title of the people to their liberty, might safely be trusted with extensive powers. But new freedom could not exist in safety under the old tyrant. Since he was not to be deprived of the name of king, the only course which was left was to make him a mere trustee, nominally seised of prerogatives, of which others had the use, a Grand Lama, a Roi Fainéant, a phantom resembling those Dagoberts and Childeberts who wore the badges of royalty, while Ebroin and Charles Martel held the real sovereignty of the state.

The conditions which the Parliament propounded were hard; but, we are sure, not harder than those which even the Tories in the Convention of 1689 would have imposed on James, if it had been resolved that James should continue to be king. The chief condition was, that the command of the militia and the conduct of the war in Ireland should be left to the Parliament. On this point was that great issue joined whereof the two parties put themselves on God and on the sword.

We think, not only that the Commons were justified in demanding for themselves the power to dispose of the military force, but that it would have been absolute insanity in them to leave that force at the disposal of the king. From the very beginning of his reign, it had evidently been his object to govern by an army. His third Parliament had complained, in the Petition of Right, of his fondness for martial law, and of the vexatious manner in which he billeted his soldiers on the people. The wish nearest the heart of Strafford was, as his letters prove, that the revenue might be brought into such a state as would enable the king to support a standing military establishment. In 1640, Charles had supported an army in the northern counties by lawless exactions. In 1641, he had engaged in an intrigue, the object of which was to bring that army into London, for the purpose of overawing the Parliament. His late conduct had proved that, if he were suffered to retain even a small bodyguard of his own creatures near his person, the Commons would be in dange of outrage, pernaps o massacre. The Houses were still deliberating under the protection of the militia of London. Could the command of the whole armed force of the realm have been, under these circumstances, safely confided to the king? Would it not have been frenzy in the Parliament to raise and pay an army of fifteen or twenty thousand men for the Irish war, and to give to Charles the absolute control of this amy, and the power of selecting, promoting, and dismissing officers at his pleasure? Was it not possible that this army might become, what it is the nature of armies to become, what so many armies formed under much more favourable circumstances have become, what the army of the English Commonwealth became, what the army of ine French Republic

Was

became an instrument of despotism?
it not possible that the soldiers might forget
that they were also citizens, and might be ready
to serve their general against their country?
Was it not certain that, on the very first day
on which Charles could venture to revoke his
concessions, and to punish his opponents, he
would establish an arbitrary government, and
exact a bloody revenge?

Our own times furnish a parallel case. Suppose that a revolution should take place in Spain, that the Constitution of Cadiz should be re-established, that the Cortes should meet again, that the Spanish Prynnes and Burtons, who are now wandering in rags round Leicester Square, should be restored to ther country, Ferdinand the Seventh would, in that case, of course, repeat all the oaths and promises which he made in 1820, and broke in 1823. But would it not be madness in the Cortes, even if they were to leave him the name of king, to leave him more than the name? Would not all Europe scoff at them, if they were to permit him to assemble a large army for an expedition to America, to model that army at his pleasure, to put it under the command of officers chosen by himself? Should we not say, that every member of the constitutional party, who might concur in such a measure, would most richly deserve the fate which he would probably meet-the fate of Riego and of the Empecinado? We are not disposed to pay compliments to Ferdinand; nor do we conceive that we pay him any compliment, when we say, that, of all sovereigns in history, he seems to us most to resemble King Charles the First. Like Charles, he is pious after a certain fashion; like Charles, he has made large concessions to his people after a certain fashion. It is well for him that he has had to deal with men who bore very little resemblance to the English Puritans.

The Commons would have the power of the sword, the king would not part with it; and nothing remained but to try the chances of war. Charles still had a strong party in the country. His august office, his dignified manners, his solemn protestations that he would for the time to come respect the liberties of his subjects, pity for fallen greatness, fear of violent innovation, secured to him many adherents. He had the Church, the Universities, a majority of the nobles and of the old landed gentry. The austerity of the Puritan manners drove most of the gay and dissolute youth of that age to the royal standard. Many good, brave, and moderate men, who disliked his former conduct, and who entertained doubts touching his present sincerity, espoused his cause unwill ingly, and with many painful misgivings; because, though they dreaded his tyranny much, they dreaded democratic violence more.

On the other side was the great body of the middle orders of England-the merchants, the shopkeepers, the yeomanry, headed by a very large and formidable minority of the peerage and of the landed gentry. The Earl of Essex, a man of respectable abilities, and of some military experience, was appointed to the command of the parliamentary army.

Hampden spared neither his fortune nor his

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person in the cause. He subscribed two thou- | do more to make a general than all the dia sand pounds to the public service. He took a grams of Jomini. This, however, is certain, colonel's commission in the army, and went that Hampden showed himself a far better offiinto Buckinghamshire to raise a regiment of cer than Essex, and Cromwell than Lesley. infantry. His neighbours eagerly enlisted The military errors of Essex were probably under his command. His men were known in some degree produced by political timidity. by their green uniform, and by their standard, He was honestly, but not warmly, attached to which bore on one side the watchword of the the cause of the Parliament; and next to a Parliament, "God with us," and on the other great defeat, he dreaded a great victory. Hamp the device of Hampden," Vestigia nulla retror- den, on the other hand, was for vigorous and sum." This motto well described the line of decisive measures. When he drew the sword, conduct which he pursued. No member of as Clarendon has well said, he threw away the his party had been so temperate, while there scabbard. He had shown that he knew better remained a hope that legal and peaceable than any public man of his time, how to value measures might save the country. No mem- and how to practise moderation. But he knew ber of his party showed so much energy and that the essence of war is violence, and that vigour when it became necessary to appeal to moderation in war is imbecility. On several arms. He made himself thoroughly master of occasions particularly during the operations his military duty, and "performed it," to use in the neighbourhood of Brentford, he remonthe words of Clarendon, "upon all occasions strated earnestly with Essex. Wherever he most punctually." The regiment which he had commanded separately, the boldness and rapi raised and trained was considered as one of dity of his movements presented a striking the best in the service of the Parliament. He contrast to the sluggishness of his superior. exposed his person in every action, with an intrepidity which made him conspicuous even among thousands of brave men. "He was," says Clarendon, "of a personal courage equal to his best parts; so that he was an enemy not to be wished wherever he might have been made a friend, and as much to be apprehended where he was so as any man could deserve to be." Though his military career was short, and his military situation subordinate, he fully proved that he possessed the talents of a great general, as well as those of a great statesman. We shall not attempt to give a history of the war. Lord Nugent's account of the military operations is very animated and striking. Our abstract would be dull, and probably unintelligible. There was, in fact, for some time, no great and connected system of operations on either side. The war of the two parties was like the war of Arimanes and Oromazdes, neither of whom, according to the Eastern theologians, has any exclusive domain, who are equally omnipresent, who equally pervade all space, who carry on their eternal strife within every particle of matter. There was a petty war in almost every county. A town furnished troops to the Parliament, while the The languid proceedings of Essex were manor-house of the neighbouring peer was loudly condemned by the troops. All the argarrisoned for the king. The combatants were dent and daring spirits in the parliamentary rarely disposed to march far from their own party were eager to have Hampden at thei homes. It was reserved for Fairfax and Crom-head. Had his life been prolonged, there is well to terminate this desultory warfare. by moving one overwhelming force successively against all the scattered fragments of the royal

party.

It is a remarkable circumstance, that the officers who had studied tactics in what were considered as the best schools-under Vere in the Netherlands, and under Gustavus Adolphus in Germany-displayed far less skill than those commanders who had been bred to peaceful employments, and who never saw even a skirmish till the civil war broke out. An unlearned person might hence be inclined to suspect that the military art is no very profound mystery; that its principles are the principles of plain good sense; and that a quick eye, a cool head, and a stout heart will VOL. II.-22

In the Parliament he possessed boundless influence. His employments towards the close of 1642 have been described by Denham in some lines, which, though intended to be sarcastic, convey in truth the highest eulogy. Hampden is described in this satire, as perpetually passing and repassing between the military station at Windsor and the House of Commons at Westminster; overawing the general, and giving law to that Parliament which knew no other law. It was at this time that he organized that celebrated association of counties, to which his party was principally indebted for its victory over the king.

The

In the early part of 1643, the shires lying in the neighbourhood of London, which were devoted to the cause of the Parliament, were incessantly annoyed by Rupert and his cavalry. Essex had extended his lines so far, that almost every point was vulnerable. young prince, who, though not a great general, was an active and enterprising partisan, fre quently surprised posts, burned villages, swept away cattle, and was again at Oxford, before a force sufficient to encounter him could be assembled.

every reason to believe that the supreme command would have been intrusted to him. But it was decreed that, at this conjuncture, Eng land should lose the only man who united per fect disinterestedness to eminent talents-the only man who, being capable of gaining the victory for her, was incapable of abusing that victory when gained.

In the evening of the 17th of June, Rupert darted out of Oxford with his cavalry on a predatory expedition. At three in the morning of the following day, he attacked and dispersed a few parliamentary soldiers who were quar tered at Postcombe. He then flew to Chinnor, burned the village, killed or took all the troops who were posted there, and prepared to hurry back with his booty and his prisoners to Oxford

P

He was buried in the parish church of Hampden. His soldiers, bareheaded, with reversed arms and muffled drums and colours, escorted his body to the grave, singing, as they marched, that lofty and melancholy psalm, in which the fragility of human life is contrasted with the immutability of Him, in whose sight a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

Hampden had, on the preceding day, strong- O Lord, save my country-O Lord, be mercily represented to Essex the danger to which ful to- -" In that broken ejaculation passed this part of the line was exposed. As soon away his noble and fearless spirit. as he received intelligence of Rupert's incursions, he sent off a horseman with a message to the general. The Cavaliers, he said, could return only by Chiselhampton Bridge. A force ought to be instantly despatched in that direction, for the purpose of intercepting them. In the mean time, he resolved to set out with all the cavalry that he could muster, for the purpose of impeding the march of the enemy till Essex could take measures for cutting off their retreat. A considerable body of horse and dragoons volunteered to follow him. He was not their commander. He did not even belong to their branch of the service. But "he was," says Lord Clarendon, "second to none but the general himself in the observance and application of all men." On the field of Chalgrove he came up with Rupert. A fierce skirmish ensued In the first charge, Hampden was struck in the shoulder by two bullets, which broke the bone, and lodged in his body. The troops of the Parliament lost heart and gave way. Rupert, after pursuing them for a short time, hastened to cross the bridge, and made his retreat unmolested to Oxford.

The news of Hampden's death produced as great a consternation in his party, according to Clarendon, as if their whole army had been cut off. The journals of the time amply prove that the Parliament and all its friends were filled with grief and dismay. Lord Nugent has quoted a remarkable passage from the next Weekly Intelligencer. "The loss of Colonel Hampden goeth near the heart of every man that loves the good of his king and country, and makes some conceive little content to be at the army now that he is gone. The memory of this deceased colonel is such, that in no age to come but it will more and more be har in honour and esteem;-a man so religious, and of that prudence, judgment, temper, valour, and integrity, that he hath left few his like behind him."

Hampden, with his head drooping, and his nands leaning on his horse's neck, moved feebly out of the battle. The mansion which He had indeed left none his like behind him. had been inhabited by his father-in-law, and There still remained, indeed, in his party, from which in his youth he had carried home many acute intellects, many eloquent tongues, his bride, Elizabeth, was in sight. There still many brave and honest hearts. There still remains an affecting tradition, that he looked remained a rugged and clownish soldier, halffor a moment towards that beloved house, and fanatic, half-buffoon, whose talents, discerned made an effort to go thither to die. But the as yet only by one penetrating eye, were equal enemy lay in that direction. He turned his to all the highest duties of the soldier and the horse towards Thame, where he arrived almost prince. But in Hampden, and in Hampden fainting with agony. The surgeons dressed his alone, were united all the qualities which, at wounds. But there was no hope. The pain such a crisis, were necessary to save the state which he suffered was most excruciating. But the valour and energy of Cromwell, the dishe endured it with admirable firmness and re- cernment and eloquence of Vane, the humanity signation. His first care was for his country. and moderation of Manchester, the stern inteHe wrote from his bed several letters to Lon-grity of Hale, the ardent public spirit of Sidney. don concerning public affairs, and sent a last pressing message to the head-quarters, recommending that the dispersed forces should be concentrated. When his last public duties were performed, he calmly prepared himself to die. He was attended by a clergyman of the Church of England, with whom he had lived in habits of intimacy, and by the chaplain of the Buckinghamshire Green-coats, Dr. Spurton, whom Baxter describes as a famous and excellent divine.

Others might possess the qualities which were necessary to save the popular party in the crisis of danger; he alone had both the power and the inclination to restrain its excesses in the hour of triumph. Others could conquer; he alone could reconcile. A heart as bold as his brought up the cuirassiers who turned the tide of battle on Marston Moor. As skilful an eye as his watched the Scotch army descending from the heights over Dunbar. But it was when, to the sullen tyranny of Laud and Charles, had A short time before his death, the sacrament succeeded the fierce conflict of sects and facwas administered to him. He declared that, tions, ambitious of ascendency and burning though he disliked the government of the for revenge; it was when the vices and ignoChurch of England, he yet agreed with that rance which the old tyranny had generated, Church as to all essential matters of doctrine. threatened the new freedom with destruction, His intellect remained unclouded. When all that England missed that sobriety, that selfwas nearly over, he lay murmuring faint command, that perfect soundness of judgment, prayers for himself and for the cause in which that perfect rectitude of intention, to which the he died. "Lord Jesus," he exclaimed, in the history of revolutions furnishes no parallel, or moment of the last agony, "receive my soul-furnishes a parallel in Washington alone.

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