164S.

any question, as if their business were chiefly to provoke the king to "violate his own safe conduct."

In the answer, subscribed by the mayor and governor, by thirteen of the aldermen and most substantial citizens, and eleven officers of the garrison, [135], they informed the king that they conceived themselves bound to obey the commands of his majesty, signified by both houses of parliament, and accordingly that they should keep the city for the use of his majesty and of his royal posterity. This sort of language, [136] however inconsistent to modern apprehensions, was at first officially adopted by the parliament and all their adherents, and has called forth many animadversions and attempts at vindication. To reconcile the nation at large to their measures they assumed that they were espousing the king's cause; for they wished to make it appear that he had deserted and was contending against himself. Thus they established a distinction between the royal office and person, and maintained that his political person must be and actually was with them, though his natural person was at war with them; and they kept up an appearance of reverence towards the one, while they endeavoured to subdue the other. This is the key to the seeming ambiguity of the reply of the citizens and garrison, and of that comment in which it is defended by their historian: "It was so, that the town was held for the use of "his majesty, but according to the sense of the houses of parliament." [187]

Charles, long accustomed to this style of expression, which he tho roughly comprehended, was not so much surprised at the terms of the answer as at the confidence that dictated it; yet he received it most commendably, without the least symptom of impatience. "Waller is "extinct, and Essex cannot come," was the only remark that escaped his lips upon the perusal of it; but as the question was thus decided, no conference ensued; the messengers were hastily dismissed, and ere the gates had closed upon them hostilities had begun. For straightway the suburbs on the north and east and south were seen in a blaze; and the king's troops who advanced on the side of the Barton-street, were

driven out by the fire. In this conflagration one church and upwards of two hundred houses were destroyed. [138]

From such corresponding words and actions the king perceived that as he had to deal with so determined an enemy, "he was to expect nothing there but what could not be kept from him." And the advice of his council of war, backed by the positive opinion of soldiers of the best experience, who rode around and took a nearer view of the fortifications, induced him to commence the siege in form. They were confident that it might be taken by approach in less than ten days. Too many and valuable lives had been lost at the storming of Bristol to permit an attempt of carrying it by assault. The former plan was therefore adopted, and on that very night the engineers began to open their trenches. The pipes were cut that conveyed water from Robinhood's hill to the city conduits; and the stream that proceeds from the quarter of Upton St. Leonard's, then turning, as it now does, several corn mills, was diverted from its course, and most of the mills were burnt. A messenger was immediately despatched to Oxford with orders to bring down a reinforcement of foot with the battering train; and Sir William Vavasour, commander of all the forces in South Wales, was directed to draw his men to the right bank of the Severn, and there to complete the blockade by breaking down the bridges. Within two days the several divisions had taken up their posts. Forces from Worcester, afterwards joined by Vavasour, quartered in the north upon the Tewkesbury road, in houses at Longford; and a leaguer, or regular encampment, was formed in two fields at Kingsholm, less than half a mile distant. [139] Others were lodged in and about the hospital of Saint Margaret, on the London road. On the south, the Earl of Forth was encamped within a quarter of a mile, and pitched his general's tent in some grounds behind the priory of Lanthony, sheltered by a rise of land; this was the main leaguer. [140] Sir Jacob Astley, who commanded a strong party on the eastern side, was lodged in a private house in Barton-street, that had escaped the fire. [141] Vavasour, before he crossed, left a guard at the Vineyard to close the passage over the Severn. These were their arrangements when the business began.

h

1643.

1643.

The professed historians of the siege have left us such ample accounts, that to enter in this place into a minute detail of operations which they have described, would be mere repetition of what will be found in the following collection. The reader is therefore referred to the tracts of John Corbet, chaplain to the governor, and of John Dorney, town clerk of the city. The style of these writers marks their respective professions; that of Corbet will be found flowing and rhetorical, scholarlike for the time; but somewhat vitiated by the faults and obscurities of the age. He is too deficient in dates; but he offers comprehensive and judicious expositions of the actual state of opinions and affairs. Dorney is an unpretending accurate reporter, [142] not so valuable in the general view of the subject, but embracing a variety of interesting particulars, and furnishing a regular series of dates. Both of them possessed considerable talent for observation, and enjoyed every opportunity of ascertaining what passed, being themselves eye-witnesses and actors (as who within the place down to the very handmaids and children were not actors?) in the eventful drama. All who have since attempted to give a narrative of this siege have been chiefly indebted for their materials to these authentic sources.

We are less acquainted with the particulars of what occurred in the camp of the besiegers, a camp distinguished by the presence of the King, and graced with the flower of the nobility of England sumptuously appointed with horses and arms. Still, however, some scattered notices remain to be collected, which have not hitherto been brought together, and may help to illustrate the situation of both parties within and without the gates.

The city, thus beleaguered, was considered one of the fairest of its class in his majesty's dominions. [143] The main streets still, it is presumed, for the most part unaltered in their dimensions, [144] exhibit a width unusual in former days; and the fronts of some of the few houses, that have as yet resisted the hand of improvement, bear marks of antique decoration. It may be supposed to have partaken of the wealth and prosperity of those manufactories long established upon the streams that wander down the slopes and among the vallies of the neighbouring hills, and minister to the support and clothing of multi