[81.] Perfect Diurnall, March 15-22.

[82.] Mercurius Aulicus, March 13. At the beginning of hostilities, in October, 1642, when the king was on his way from Shrewsbury to fight the Earl of Essex, his horse were obliged to march without pay, and lived upon the country, having strict orders that as little spoil be made as possible. Letter of the Earl of Sunderland. Sidney State Papers. II. And in the preceding August, the parliamentary soldiers were forbidden to break or pillage houses without command of their captains. Lords' Journals. August 27. Clarendon praises the conduct of the king's cavalry; but it may be easily calculated what evil must have arisen on all sides.

[83.] Baxter. Pt. I. p. 44.

[84.] On new year's day. The chief actor and leader of the party was Captain Buck, probably the same who made an excuse to steal out of Cirencester on the morning of the assault. See Tract, p. 164. Jasper Humphrey, vicar of South Cerney, was as great a sufferer. The same Buck and his men were about to hang him up on the sign post of the king's head at Cirencester but he was rescued from them by Mr. Georges and Colonel Fettiplace. Walker Pt. II. pp. 242. 282.

;

[85.] Milton. P. L. B. XI. Yet quarter sessions continued to be held regularly in Gloucester, which might prove some check to disorders in the place. Dorney, the town clerk, in his speech at the election of civil officers in the ensuing October, reminds the coroner how little he had to do with outlawry or inquisitions; and the sheriffs that they "have had few causes to judge or "writs to execute; that they have not had the power of their county, nor yet of their goal: such is the condition of these times." Speeches of Dorney, p. 4.

[86.] Ludlow. I. p. 57.

[87.] Trial of Colonel Nathaniel Fiennes. State Trials. I. The inhabitants suspected and complained of him from the irregularity of his life, which was not exactly adapted to his situation and circumstances, and partook, it must be confessed, rather of the Cavalier than the Roundhead.

"About the 6th of March came information by letters from Bristoll, that "Colonel Essex had so ill demeaned himself there, that the honest and well "affected inhabitants of the citie were both weary and afraid of him, and of "his government, because he spent his time in little else but drinking, feast"ing, dancing, riotous gaming, and such like vain and profane living. "Wherefore to rid themselves of him, they caused him to be invited (where"unto he was easily intreated) to feast and dance in a house some distance from "the citie, where being mighty joviall and merry, in the midst of his cups, "he was suddenly apprehended by Colonel Fynes (son and heir to that "noble and pious peer the Lord Sey) and his troop of horse, and presently by "them carried prisoner from thence, first to Berkeley castle, and afterwards "to the citie of Gloucester, where he was kept in safe custodie." Quoted in Corry and Evans's History of Bristol. I. p 404.

[88.]" A Briefe Relation abstracted out of several Letters," &c. London. 1642. The following extract from one of these letters shews the civilities were not neglected between indivíduals in arms against each other.

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"On Thursday Prince Robert's trumpeter came to towne, but as a spy; his "errande was to demand two dead bodies that we killed upon the Downe, one whereof was Stroud, as he said. The trumpeter enquired for me, and said, my Lord of Cleveland desired me to send him a pound of tobacco, "but I being out of the way, Colonel Fines sent him one pound, and Colonel "Popham another."

[89.] Clarendon. II. 156. says that three troops were taken; and the "Con"tinuation of Special Passages," No. 36, that great store of horses, and Lord Herbert's own troop were taken, "which consisted of 100 brave horse, many "of them having been long providing by the Earl of Worcester, divers of "them being valued at a hundred pound a horse." The Mercurius Aulicus, published at Oxford, March 28, endeavours to make the best of the disaster, and reduces the number of the prisoners to half of the reality; of the cavalry it reports that "the whole went fairly off and saved themselves for better

"times."

[ 90.] Furney. MS. Collections in the Bodleian library. See APPENDIX, No. II. [91.] Despatch of Waller and Haslerig. Tracts, 196.

[92.] See Note 64.

[93.] The protestation to be taken by a prisoner, as settled by the houses, was conceived in these terms. "I, A, B, do in the presence of Almighty God, "solemnly vow, promise and protest, that I will never hereafter, upon any "command, power, or pretence of authority whatsoever, take up or bear 66 arms against the parliament."

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Ordered, that no prisoner, committed for actual levying war against the "parliament, be discharged before he take this protestation." Commons' Journals, Feb. 9, 1612.

[94.] Clarendon. ut supra.

[95.] May. Hist. of the Parliament of England, tells us, he returned upon a summons from the Earl of Essex to join the main ariny; but Waller and Haslerig themselves make no mention of this.

[96.] See Tracts, pp. 196. 197.

[97.]" Experiences and Observations of Sir William Waller," MS. under the head, "Perils by War." This little book has been published under the title of "Divine Meditations," and exhibits a favourable portrait of the candour and piety of the writer. While Waller was at Gloucester, the mayor, aldermen, and common council presented him with "two silver and gilt flag"gons." S. A. 1612-3.

[98] Waller's letter to the parliament is dated from Hereford, April 27. Commons' Journals, May 8, 1643.

[99.] Tracts, 38.

[100.] These had been taken at Hereford. May. B. II. c. 4. See Tracts, 36. [101.] May. B. III. c. 2. It is very doubtful whether the grave charge of.

u

intending to murder the mayor, and the whole of the opposite party at Bristol, which some pamphlets bring against the royalists, is founded in truth. It would have been an aggravation that might advantageously have been employed by Fiennes in this letter. But he says in his defence, when he was tried for cowardice, that the mayor himself and the corporation interceded for the lives of these persons Trial of Fiennes. The proclamation found in the house of Yeomans may also be interpreted to shew that in the success of their plot they were desirous of avoiding the effusion of blood. "All inhabitants of "the Bridge, High-street, and Corn-street, keep within your doors upon 'peril of your lives. All other inhabitants of this city who stand for the king, let them forthwith appear at the High Cross with such arms as they have, "andfollow their leaders." Corry and Evans Hist of Bristol I. 408. parts of the city specified contained some of the most disaffected persons.

The

[102.] Clarendon. II. 247. Baker. Chronicle. in anno p. 445. He sheltered himself under the authority of the Earl of Essex, and Essex under that of the parliament who openly approved of the proceeding. Commons' Journals. June 17. This advantage the parliament clearly had over Charles, that in any harsh measure the odium rested upon no individual. A corpse disinterred March 15th, 1814, from a vault in the north aisle of St. Maryport church was conjectured to have been that of Yeomans or Boucher: though there is good reason to suspect the validity of this opinion. A great part of it was found to have been converted in that fatty substance, technically called adipocere. Hist. of Bristol. II. 43. et seq The heart so changed, and in a state of preservation, is said to be in the possession of a medical gentleman of Bristol, and is still considered to have been that of Yeomans.

[103.] Duncumb. Hist. of Herefordshire. I. 264.

[104.] Dugdale. Short View, &c. 367.

[105.] Clarendon. II 290. See Tracts, 201. et seq. This letter may seem at first sight to have little more to do with the following collection than the fact of its being written from Bristol, the place of Waller's retreat but from Clarendon's account, II. 283. the greater part of the battle was fought on the Gloucestershire side of the border; and thus the maps place the monument of Sir Beville Granville, who was slain in it. Prince Maurice drew up his forces on Toghill, in the parishes of Abston and Wyke, and Marshfield in the county of Gloucester, before he advanced against Waller. Atkyns. 104. Sir John Denham, alluding to Waller's appellation of "the Conqueror," thus ridicules his flight from this field of battle

And now without lying, you may paint him flying,
At Bristol they say you may find him;

Great William the Con, so fast did he run
That he left half his name behind him.

Poems A second Western Wonder.

[166.] May. B. III. c. 5. The historian, himself an excellent poet, and celebrated for his translation and continuation of Lucan, has declined to offer an English version of this enigmatical and obscure production. But on July 21, 1616, when a thanksgiving was held by the parliament for the surrender of Oxford, it was published in the Newsbooks, with a translation and tri

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umphant comment upon the efficacy of prayer. Perfect Diurnall. July 20-27, 1646. Baron Maseres, in his reprint of the "History of the Parliament of England," has in a note subjoined the following exposition. "In the first "line of this Epigram-the two words Far pulchra denote the Lord Fairfax and "his son Sir Thomas Fairfax, and the troops under their command; and the "words Castro novo denote the Earl of Newcastle and his army. In the fourth " and fifth lines the words Murus, cui addita est Canina Littera denote Sir Wil"liam Waller, or Wall-er, and his army, and in the sixth line, the words Leporis "vado denote the Marquis of Hertford, or Hartford, or Harford or Hareford or Hares'-ford, and his army which had lately defeated Sir William Waller's army. In the ninth and tenth lines the words Claudii Urbs denote the city "of Gloucester, which is sometimes in Latin called Claudii Castra. In the "tenth line the words Herois Teutonici seem to denote Prince Rupert, the "German hero, who had lately taken the city of Bristol, and who was coming "with the great army of the king, with the king himself at the head of it, cum magno Duce, to lay siege to Gloucester. In the eleventh line the words "pacata Thule est, mean that Scotland is in a state of peace, and occasions no fright or alarm to the neighbouring southern kingdom of England, or "to its people, or its king; nec Noto timor, popello aut regi. And the twelfth "line seems to mean that the only remedy that threatens the king's cause "with ruin is the prayers of the puritan faction at London, who have lately "run mad with religious zeal and enthusiasm."

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Thus far Baron Maseres. It may, however, be observed, that if the date of the article can be assumed as correct, he is mistaken in his interpretation of the tenth and eleventh lines. Prince Rupert had not as yet taken Bristol, neither did he appear before it till the 24th. Clarendon. II. 293. The ridiculous pun upon er, the termination of Waller's name, is probably borrowed from Ben Jonson's Alchymist. Without indulging in fanciful associations, it may be suspected that the peculiar phrase "Waller is extinct," which the king, as will be seen, employed in his reply to the messengers from the city of Gloucester, was founded upon his familiarity with these lines; as he had recently come from Oxford, where, it may be presumed, they had been handed about in the court circle. The whole, however amusing it might then have been as a jeu d'esprit, is beneath criticism, and is now interesting, rather as a specimen of opinion than of taste. The progress of the royal forces about this period gave rise to the following rhymes, which are assigned to July 31st, 1643.

Bristol taking,

Exeter shaking,
Gloucester quaking.

[107.] A Relation made in Fiennes, Aug. 5, 1643. pp. 5. 27.

Corry and Evans. Hist. of Bristol. I. 414. the house of commons by Col. Nathaniel

[108.] He was so inveterate in his opposition that he caused a proclamation of the king to be publicly burnt by the common hangman in the market place at Bristol. Dugdale. Short View, 578.

[109.] Nathaniel Fiennes seems to have wished that it should be thought he was as good a swordsman as he was a speaker. He took for his pennon, Orange; the base part a mount vert; standing on which, in front, the

"Goddess Bellona, apparelled in crimson, azure and gold; helmet gold, "adorned with a bloody or red plume; in her right hand extended a roll; in "her left a spear, proper, shafted, gold; over head a label spread of silver, "with this motto in Roman sable letters UTRAQUE PALLADE, the scroll "on the back gold; the front silver; the corner tasselled of the last, fringed "with silver and orange." Prestwich. Respublica. 25.

[110.] This is evident from his own letters, "A Relation," &c. ut supra.

[111.] It was deposed upon the trial of the governor that, as soon as the siege of Bristol was spoken of, many wagers were laid at Oxford, and offered to be laid in and near London, that the town would be surrendered on the twenty sixth of July. Fiennes was tried at St. Alban's in November, 1643, and sentenced to lose his head; but he found more mercy from the hands of Essex and the parliament than the unfortunate royalists at Bristol. Though he had provoked the investigation, he expected so confidently that it would terminate in his favour, that the result utterly astonished and confounded him. There were many who thought he was ill used in the business; and this opinion was confirmed, when afterwards, with a very superior force, Prince Rupert was seen to surrender the same place, after holding out only a few days, to the surprise of friends and enemies.

[112.] Trial of Fiennes.

[113.] Commons' Journals, August 1, 1643.

[114.] But a hundred dragoons from Berkeley Castle came into Gloucester under the command of Col. Forbes. This officer, Colonel Carre, who commanded at Cirencester at the storming of that place, Tracts, 163. and Captain Davison were Scotchmen who came into the service at Gloucester in 1642, when their military preparations were in their infancy; and the consequence attached to them may be inferred from Lieutenant Backhouse going out on their arrival to meet them with the great horses. Steward's Accounts, MS. 1642-3.

[115.] Lords' Journals, Aug. 3.

[116.] Clarendon. II. 312. et seq. It might, I think, be satisfactorily proved that Clarendon himself was not at the siege.

[117.] A relation made in the house of commons, &c. p. 13. See Corbet's opinion, Tracts, 56.

[118.] Trial of Fiennes.

[119.] Hist. of England. II. 477.

[120] The letter, APPENDIX, No. I. (A.) is a striking proof of this Her countryman, Bossuet, in his funeral oration upon her, attributes as much, if not more than our own writers, to her interference in the whole of the war, and asserts that she was averse, to the siege of Hull as well as Gloucester. His words on this point are, "Si la reine en eûté té crue; si, "au lieu de diviser les armées royales, et de les amuser, contre son avis, aux