CHAP. 1640. Similar application to France. The Pope will not lend. Proposal to bring in Danish soldiers. July 25. Martial executed. same time, Cottington was making application to the French Agent for a loan of 400,000l. It is hardly necessary to add that the request did not meet with a favourable reply.1 The Queen, too, had her share of disappointment; the reply to the request which had been made in her name, in the height of the tumults in May, arrived from Rome. The answer was plain enough. If Charles would become a Catholic, he should have both men and money. Six or eight thousand soldiers, who would serve the King to their last breath, would be sent in vessels which would arrive under the pretext of fetching alum. Unless he became a Catholic it was impossible to do anything for him.2 The complete failure to obtain money increased the difficulty of keeping order among the soldiers. So far had the distrust of the English army gone that it was seriously proposed to levy two regiments of Danish horse, and to bring them into England to keep order amongst the mutineers; and this project was only abandoned through the absolute impossibility of finding the money for the levy. If Danish soldiers were not to be had, at least the law to be English officers might be empowered to execute martial law. "You may now hang with more authority," wrote Northumberland in forwarding these instructions to Conway; " but, to make all sure, a pardon must come at last." The whole expenditure on the forces, he added, till the end of October, would be 300,000l., towards which we have not in cash. nor in view above 20,000l. at the most. If some Aug. 9 1 Montreuil's Despatch, Transcripts. 3 Giustinian's Despatch, Aug. 10' R. O. July 21, Ven. Transcripts. That this was so "Aug. 3 ATTACKS ON THE COMMUNION RAILS. speedy way be not found to get the rest presently, I do not think that I shall pass the Trent this year.'1 399 CHAP 1640. July 25. Commu pulled In the Eastern counties the unruliness of the soldiers assumed a new form. At Bocking the nion rails clergyman was so ill-advised as to attempt to pro- down. pitiate the men by the gift of a barrel of beer and fifty shillings. They took his money and his beer, got drunk, and rushed into the church. There they pulled up the Communion rails, brought them out and made a bonfire with them in the street. In various other places in Essex, churches were invaded and the Communion rails pulled down. At Penfield, near Braintree, and at Icklington in Cambridgeshire, the minister was chased out of the parish.2 At the back of this ill news came a great petition from the gentlemen of Yorkshire. Not only did they complain of the violence of the soldiery quartered amongst them, but they proceeded to say that the billeting of these men in their houses was a breach of the Petition of Right. The petition was presented to the King at Oatlands on the 30th. Strafford would have had it rejected as an act of mutiny in the face of approaching invasion. His daring spirit never quailed, but he could no longer inspire his fellow-councillors with his is shown by the instructions given on Aug. 6 by Christian IV. to his ambassadors Ulfield and Krabbe. They were to propose to Charles the cession of the Orkneys to Denmark, either for money or for hired soldiers, as Christian had heard from General King of Charles's wish to have soldiers from Denmark. When the ambassadors arrived it was too late, and they said nothing of the Orkneys, and Charles was equally silent about the soldiers. This information has been kindly communicated to me by Dr. Fredericia from the Copenhagen archives. See his Danmarks ydre politiske Historie, 1635-1645, p. 258. 1 Northumberland to Conway, July 25, 2 Maynard to the Council, July 27. Ibid. cccclxi. 23, 24. S. P. Dom. cccclxi. 16. July 28. shire peti The York tion. July 30. sented to It is pre the King. CHAP. 1640. own audacity. To them the case, as well it might, seemed altogether desperate. Peace, they thought, must now be bought at any price. Roe, the opponent to be of the debasement of the coinage, was to carry July 30. Negotia opened. The City again refuses to lend. War inevitable. the news to the City that negotiations were to be opened, and to ask once more for a loan, which it was fondly hoped would be readily granted, as the money was needed to pay off the soldiers and not for purposes of war. Roe went to Guildhall as he was bidden, but he went in vain. He was told that grants of money were matters for Parliaments, and not for the citizens of London. As for themselves they were quite unable to find the money, the Londonderry plantation having consumed their stocks.'1 If it was unlikely that the Londoners would place confidence in the honeyed words of the King now that he was in such desperate straits, it was still less likely that, after the experience of the pacification of Berwick, the Scots would reopen a negotiation which took no account of their present demands, and which, even if it gave them all for which they asked, might be subsequently explained away by the interpretation which it might please Charles to place upon his words. They had long ago made up their minds that a lasting peace could only be attained after an invasion of England, and that it would be necessary to come to an understanding not with the King alone, but with an English Parliament. Every piece of intelligence which reached them from the South must have convinced them that they had no longer, as in 1639, to fear a national resistance. The circumstances of the dissolution of the late Parliament had put an end to Rossingham's Newsletter, Aug. 4, S. P. Dom. cccclxiii. 33. Montreuil's Despatch. Aug., Bibl. Nat. Fr. 15,995, fol. 107. Giustinian's Despatch, Aug. 1, l'en. Transcripts. 7 ENGLISH COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE SCOTS. that. Personages of note and eminence had entered into communication with their commissioners, and had given them assurances, which they had no reason to doubt, that Parliament, if it met, would take up their cause, and would refuse to grant a sixpence to the King unless he consented to put an end to the war.1 If nothing had passed since, the knowledge of the emptiness of the Exchequer, of the growing resistance to the various attempts which had been made to wring money from Englishmen, and of the mutinous temper in which the troops were marching northwards, must have convinced the Covenanting leaders that the time had now arrived in which they might strike hard without fear of consequences. 401 CHAP. 1640. July. cations the Scots There can be little doubt, however, that secret Communicommunications had passed between the Scots and between the English leaders. Before Loudoun had left London and the he had been in communication with Lord Savile, the leaders. English son of Strafford's old rival, who had inherited the personal antipathies of his father, and whose hatred of Strafford placed him by the side of men of higher aims than his own. To him, as the recognised organ of the English malcontents, Johnston of Warriston addressed a letter on June 23, just at the moment when Leslie's army was first gathering at Leith. After letter to expressing the not unnatural desire of the Scottish Savile. leaders for a definite understanding with the English nobility, it asked for an extension of the National Covenant in some form to England, in order that the Scots might distinguish friends from foes, and for a special engagement from some principal persons that they would join the invading army at its entrance The communications through Frost, noticed by Burnet (Hist. of Own Times, i. 27) seem to relate to the period before the Parliament. June 23. Johnston's CHAP. 1640. July 8. the Peers. into Northumberland, or would send money for its support. This letter passed through Loudoun's hands, and Answer of the answer was forwarded by Savile some days after the Scottish nobleman had set out on his return. It was signed by Bedford, Essex, Brooke, Warwick, Scrope, Mandeville, and himself. It contained a distinct refusal to commit a treasonable act, and an assurance that the English who had stood by their side in the last Parliament would stand by their side still in a legal and honourable way. Their enemies were one, their interest was one, their end was one, a free Parliament,' to try all offenders, and to settle religion and liberty. This letter failed to give satisfaction in Scotland. Nor was its deficiency likely to be supplied by an accompanying letter, full of the most unqualified offers of aid from Savile himself. The Scots pressed for an open declaration and engagement in their favour. In the end of July or the beginning of August, Savile sent them what they wanted. He gagement. forged forged the signatures of the Peers with such skill that, when the document was afterwards submitted to their inspection, they were unable to point out a single turn of the pen by which the forgery might have been detected.1 Aug. Savile's forged en I have probably surprised many of my readers by the facility with which I have accepted Oldmixon's letters (Hist. of Engl. 141) as genuine. Oldmixon's character for truthfulness stands so very low that historians have been quite satisfied to treat the letters as a forgery. The internal evidence of their authenticity is, however, very strong. The letters of Johnston, of the Peers, and of Savile are written in so distinct a style, and that style so evidently appropriate to the character and position of the writers, as to require in a forger a very high art indeed-art which there is nothing to lead us to suppose that Oldmixon possessed. The allusions to passing events cannot all be tested, but there is none which I have succeeded in testing which is incorrect. The prediction that the troops would be on the Borders on July 10 indeed anticipated reality by ten days; but this is just the mistake that Johnston was likely |