Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/401



1em ''My Lords and Gentlemen,-Being (in prosecution of the common Enemy) advanced, with the Army under my command, to the borders of Scotland, I thought fit, to prevent any misapprehension or prejudice that might be raised thereupon, to send your Lordships these Gentlemen, Colonel Bright, Scoutmaster-General Rowe, and Mr. Stapylton, to acquaint you with the reasons thereof: concerning which I desire your Lordships to give them credence. I remain, my Lords, your very humble servant,'' OLIVER CROMWELL.

Colonel Bright and Scoutmaster Rowe are persons that often occur, though somewhat undistinguishably, in the Old Pamphlets. Bright, in the end of this month, was sent over, ‘from Berwick’ apparently, to take possession of Carlisle, now ready to surrender to us. ‘Scoutmaster’ is the Chief of the Corps of ‘Guides,‘ as soldiers now call them. As to Stapylton or Stapleton, we have to remark that, besides Sir Philip Stapleton, the noted Member for Boroughbridge, and one of the Eleven, who is now banished and dead, there is a Bryan Stapleton now Member for Aldborough; he in January last was Commissioner to Scotland: but this present Stapleton is still another. Apparently, one Robert Stapylton; a favourite Chaplain of Cromwell’s; an Army-Preacher, a man of weight and eminence in that character. From his following in the rear of the Colonel and the Scoutmaster, instead of taking precedence in the Lieutenant-General’s Letter, as an M.P.