Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/143

 relating to Monday 9th November 1640, the sixth day of the Long Parliament: ‘Mr. Cromwell delivered the Petition of John Lilburn,’—young Lilburn, who had once been Prynne’s amanuensis, among other things, and whose ‘whipping with 200 stripes from Westminster to the Fleet Prison,’ had already rendered him conspicuous. This is the record of D’Ewes. To which let us now annex the following well-known passage of Sir Philip Warwick; and if the reader fancy the Speeches on the previous Saturday, and how the ‘whole of this Monday was spent in hearing grievances’ of the like sort, some dim image of a strange old scene may perhaps rise upon him.

‘The first time I ever took notice of Mr. Cromwell,’ says Warwick, ‘was in the very beginning of the Parliament held in November 1640; when I,’ Member for Radnor, ‘vainly thought myself a courtly young gentleman,—for we courtiers valued ourselves much upon our good clothes! I came into the House one morning,’ Monday morning, ‘well clad; and perceived a gentleman speaking, whom I knew not,—very ordinarily apparelled; for it was a plain cloth suit, which seemed to have been made by an ill country-tailor; his linen was plain, and not very clean; and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his little band, which was not much larger than his collar. His hat was without a hatband. His stature was of a good size; his sword stuck close to his side: his countenance swoln and reddish, his voice sharp and untuneable, and his eloquence full of fervour. For the subject-matter would not bear much of reason; it being on behalf of a servant of Mr. Prynne’s who had dispersed Libels’;—yes Libels, and had come to Palaceyard for it, as we saw: ‘I sincerely profess, it lessened much my reverence unto that Great Council for this gentleman was ‘very much hearkened unto’; which was strange, seeing he had no gold lace to his coat, nor frills to his band; and otherwise, to