Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/137

 of this and the other clause in it. Discrepancies which the farther they were handled, embroiled themselves the more. His Majesty having burnt Scotch paper Declarations ‘by the hands of the common hangman,’ and almost cut off the poor Scotch Chancellor Loudon’s head, and being again resolute to chastise the rebel Scots with an Army, decides on summoning a Parliament for that end, there being no money attainable otherwise. To the great and glad astonishment of England; which, at one time, thought never to have seen another Parliament! Oliver Cromwell sat in this Parliament for Cambridge; recommended by Hampden, say some; not needing any recommendation in those Fen-countries, think others. Oliver’s Colleague was a Thomas Meautys, Esquire. This Parliament met, 13th April 1640: it was by no means prompt enough with supplies against the rebel Scots; the King dismissed it in a huff, 5th May; after a Session of three weeks: Historians call it the Short Parliament. His Majesty decides on raising money and an Army ‘by other methods’ ; to which end, Wentworth, now Earl Strafford and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, who had advised that course in the Council, did himself subscribe 20,000l. Archbishop Laud had long ago seen ‘a cloud rising’ against the Four surplices at Allhallowtide; and now it is covering the whole sky, in a most dismal and really thundery-looking manner.

His Majesty by ‘other methods,’ commission of array, benevolence, forced-loan, or how he could, got a kind of Army on foot, and set it marching out of the several Counties in the South towards the Scotch Border: but it was a most hopeless Army. The soldiers called the affair a Bishops’ War; they mutinied against their officers, shot some of their officers: in various Towns on their march, if the Clergyman were reputed Puritan, they went and gave him three cheers; if of Surplice tendency, they sometimes threw his furniture out of