Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/426

 matters were agitated at a greater distance, I was there also, and went on purpose out of a curiosity to see and observe the passages of the camp at Berwick, at the fight at Newburn, at the treaty at Ripon, at the great council at York, and at the meeting of the Long parliament, and present every day at the trial of the Earl of Strafford.’ He took down verbatim the arguments of the counsel and of the judges at Hampden's trial (Historical Collections, i. preface, ii. 480, iii. 1237).

On 25 April 1640 Rushworth was appointed clerk-assistant to the House of Commons at the request of Henry Elsing, the clerk (Commons' Journals, ii. 12). He was prohibited, however, from taking notes except under the orders of the house (ib. ii. 12, 42). On 4 Jan. 1642, when the king came to the house to demand the five members, Rushworth, without orders, took down his speech in shorthand, which Charles seeing, sent for Rushworth, and required a copy. After vainly excusing himself and citing the case of a member who was sent to the Tower for reporting to the king words spoken in the house, Rushworth was obliged to comply, and the king at once had the speech printed (ib. ii. 368; Historical Collections, iv. 478). In August 1641, in May 1642, and on many other occasions during 1642 and 1643, Rushworth was employed as a messenger between the parliament and its committees at York, Oxford, and elsewhere. ‘His diligence and speed in observing the commands of the parliament,’ observes a newspaper, ‘hath been well known, for he was employed near twenty times this last summer between York and London, and seldom more than twenty-four hours in riding of it’ (Kingdom's Weekly Intelligencer, March 21–8, 1643; cf. Commons' Journals, ii. 265, 269). On one of these journeys Rushworth met Tom Elliot, who was secretly carrying the great seal to the king, and lent the parliament's messenger his horse in order to avoid suspicion and arrest (Historical Collections, v. 718). Parliament rewarded these services by small grants of money, by gifts of horses belonging to delinquents, and by recommending Rushworth for employment under the excise commissioners (Commons' Journals, ii. 360, iii. 130, 145; Lords' Journals, v. 296). The commons also appointed him cursitor of the county of York, but the lords do not appear to have agreed to the vote (Commons' Journals, iii. 170, 180). On 11 April 1644 the house ordered that no pamphlets should be published unless licensed by Rushworth, which order was revoked on 9 March 1647 (ib. iii. 457, v. 109).

When the new model army was organised, Rushworth was appointed secretary to the general and the council of war. In that capacity he accompanied Sir Thomas Fairfax through the campaigns of 1645 and 1646. At Naseby he was with the baggage train in the rear, and wrote an account of Rupert's attack upon it (, Life of Fairfax, pp. 223, 229). Fairfax frequently employed Rushworth to write narratives of his operations to the speaker, which were usually printed by order of the house (Old Parliamentary History, xiv. 210, 289, 358;, Burning Bush, 374, 379, 383, 388, 400; Report on the Manuscripts of the Duke of Portland, i. 242, 331, &c.). At the same time Rushworth kept the general's father, Lord Fairfax, constantly informed of the political and military proceedings of his son (Fairfax Correspondence, iii. 261–95). In 1647, by virtue of his influence with Fairfax and his position as secretary to the council of the army, Rushworth became a personage of political importance. His name was habitually appended to all the manifestoes published by the army ‘by the appointment of his Excellency, Sir Thomas Fairfax, and the council of war.’ The signature, ‘John Rushworth, secretary,’ scornfully observes Holles, was ‘now far above John Brown or Henry Elsing,’ the clerks of the two houses of parliament (Memoir of Denzil, Lord Holles;, Select Tracts, i. 291). A private letter from Rushworth was, according to the same authority, the cause of Speaker Lenthall's flight to the army (ib. i. 275; cf. Clarke Papers, i. 219, ii. 146). Rushworth accompanied Fairfax again through the campaign of 1648, and wrote accounts of the siege of Colchester and the battle of Maidstone.

When Fairfax resigned his post as general rather than invade Scotland, he charged Rushworth with the duty of delivering up his commissions to the speaker (Commons' Journals, 26 June 1650). For a few months Rushworth acted as Cromwell's secretary, signed the declarations published by his army when they entered Scotland, and wrote a narrative of the battle of Dunbar (Old Parliamentary History, xix. 309, 312, 341). He probably resigned his post as secretary about the end of 1650. In 1651 Rushworth was employed by the council of state to keep them supplied with intelligence on the progress of the campaign (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1651, pp. 317, 426). On 17 Jan. 1652 he was appointed a member of the committee for the reformation of the law,