Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/311

] division it was found that a majority of thirty-six, being one hundred and forty against one hundred and four, had voted the concessions of Charles at Newport satisfactory, and offering sufficient grounds for settling the peace of the kingdom.

But the army, or, in other words, the independent and republican cause, was not going thus to be defeated. This great and determined party had come to the conclusion that the king, with whom they had been contending for twenty years, and whose lawless ambition, combined with an obstinacy and perfidiousness as unconquerable, had deluged the country with blood, and rent asunder its finest minds, was a perfectly hopeless subject, and could only be replaced in power to renew the same struggles, the same divisions, and the same bloodshed. To permit the presbyterian party, Scotch and English, to make terms with him, was only to exchange one phasis of religious despotism for another, and they were resolved to go through with their work. It may be said that they were themselves now exercising an arbitrary power, and resisting the legitimate influence of the very government by parliament which they had lately pronounced supreme. And there is no doubt that both they and the presbyterians had long outstripped the limits of constitutional conduct, and that there could be only one excuse for it, that they were become arbitrary to save the nation. Patriotism was their plea, and so long as they were purely patriotic, it was a good plea. In all ages men have been compelled to assume the supreme power to put down tyranny, and their cause was their justification. This was the justification of this new patriotic party, and in so for as they act in accordance with their professions, it is a justification perfect and unassailable. As they and the presbyterians had been warranted in taking arms against Charles, they were now warranted in taking arms against Charles and presbyterianism coalescing to reinstate a perfect Proteus of absolutism, and to set up intolerant presbyterianism in the place of intolerant episcopacy. Nothing but the righteous cause of freedom, political and religious, could justify the proceedings now taken; but so long as that freedom was alone pursued, the justification was not only complete but glorious. They were now entering on a course which had no precedent, into which nothing but the most deep-seated sense of its necessity and its sacredness could have made them daring enough to enter, and through which nothing but a pure though a stern conscience could have supported them. According to the motive and the integrity of the unexampled deed, must they come out covered with eternal renown, or eternal infamy. They had weighed all costs and perils, and they went on with the same calm intrepidity with which they had entered the smoke of battle after battle, and had borne thence the banners of a victory which they themselves felt to come from God.

On the morning of the 6th of December major-general Skippon discharged the train-bands which had guarded the two houses of parliament, and colonel Rich's cavalry and colonel Pride's regiment of foot took their places. Colonel Pride took the lead in the proceeding, which has thence acquired the name of Pride's Purge. The army determined to purge the parliament of all those who were weak enough or mischievous enough to consent to the return of the king on his own promises, which had long ceased to mean anything but deceit. Fairfax was engaged in conversation with some of the members, and colonel Pride, placing some of his soldiers in the Court of Requests, and others in the lobby of the commons, stood in the latter place with a list of its members in his hand, and as they approached—lord Grey of Groby, who stood by him as one of the door-keepers, informing him who the members were—he stopped such as were in his list, and sent them to the Queen's Court, the Court of Wards, and other places appointed for their detention, by the general and council of the army. Fifty-two of the leading presbyterians were thus secured, and the next day, others who had passed the first ordeal were also removed, so that Pride's Purge had left only about fifty members for a house, who were independents, for others had fled into the country, or hidden themselves in the city to escape arrest. On the whole, forty-seven members were imprisoned, and ninety-six excluded. The purged remainder acquired the well-known name of the Rump.

The independents were now uncontrolled; the royal party in Scotland, weakened by the defeat of Hamilton's army, were opposed by the covenanters, who again denounced the curse of Meroz from the pulpit against all who did not rise in defence of the solemn league and covenant. Loudon and Eglington were appointed commanders, and the earl of Argyll, with his Highlanders, joining them, they, with the forces of Cassilis from Carrick and Galloway, marched to Edinburgh. This wild army advancing from the west, were called the Whiggamores, either from whiggam, a phrase used in driving their horses, or whig (whey), a beverage of sour milk, which was one of their articles of food. Whichever it was, the term was soon used to designate an enemy of the king, and in the next reign was adopted as a nickname for the opponents of the court, whence our political term whig. Lord Lanark and Monroe were glad to treat with the whiggamores, and disbanded their troops, so that Argyll being a great partisan of Cromwell's, nothing more was to be feared in the north On Cromwell's visit Berwick and Carlisle had been surrendered to him.

On the sitting of the purged parliament on the 6th, the first day of Pride's weeding out the suspected members, Cromwell appeared in his place, and was received with acclamations for his services in the north. The 8th was kept as a solemn fast, and a collection was made for the wives and widows of the poor soldiers. They then adjourned to the 11th, and on Sunday, Hugh Peters, the great enthusiast of republicanism, preached a sermon in St. Margaret's, Westminster, from the text, "Bind your king with chains, and your nobles with fetters of iron;" and he did not hesitate in the sermon to characterise the king as Barabbas, the great murderer, tyrant, and traitor. It was remarkable that not only four earls and twenty commoners of note sate out this sermon, but the prince palatine himself, Charles's nephew. Charles's own family, whatever their pretences, had clearly given him up to his fate, or the prince, with his powerful fleet, would never have scoured the coasts of the south of England for several weeks without a single attempt to save his father, the impetuous prince Rupert being on board, and one of his chief counsellors.