Page:Behemoth 1889.djvu/141

 B. They might perhaps say, the people had then no Representative.

A. Then there was no commonwealth; and consequently, all the towns of England being the people’s, you, and I, and any man else, might have put in for his share. You may see by this, what weak people they were, that were carried into the rebellion by such reasoning as the Parliament used, and how impudent they were that did put such fallacies upon them.

B. Surely they were such as were esteemed the wisest men in England, being upon that account chosen to be of the Parliament.

A. And were they also esteemed the wisest men of England, that chose them?

B. I cannot tell that. For I know it is usual with the freeholders in the counties, and with tradesmen in the cities and boroughs, to choose, as near as they can, such as are most repugnant to the giving of subsidies.

A. The King in the beginning of August, after he had summoned Hull, and tried some of the counties thereabout what they would do for him, sets up his standard at Nottingham; but there came not in thither men enough to make an army sufficient to give battle to the Earl of Essex. From thence he went to Shrewsbury, where he was quickly furnished; and appointing the Earl of Lindsey to be general, he resolved to march towards London.—The Earl of Essex was now at Worcester with the Parliament’s army, making no offer to stop him in his passage; but as soon as he was gone by, marched close after him.

The King, therefore, to avoid being enclosed between the army of the Earl of Essex and the city of London, turned upon him and gave him battle at Edgehill; where, though he got not an entire victory, yet he had the better, if either had the better; and had certainly the fruit of a victory, which was to march on, in his intended way towards London: in which the next morning he took Banbury-castle, and from thence went to Oxford, and thence to Brentford,