The king's party were not less oppressive towards ministers whom they reckoned puritan; which unluckily comprehended most of those who were of strict lives, especially if they preached calvinistically, unless they redeemed that suspicion by strong demonstrations of loyalty. Neal, p. 21; Baxter's Life, p. 42. And, if they put themselves forward on this side, they were sure to suffer most severely for it on the parliament's success; an ordinance of April 1, 1643, having sequestered the private estates of all the clergy who had aided the king. Thus the condition of the English clergy was every way most deplorable; and in fact they were utterly ruined.
[266] Neal, p. 93. He says it was not tendered, by favour, to some of the clergy who had not been active against the parliament, and were reputed Calvinists. P. 59. Sanderson is said to be one instance. This historian, an honest and well-natured man at bottom, justly censures its imposition.
[267] "All the judges answered that they could deliver no opinion in this case, in point of treason by the law; because they could not deliver any opinion in point of treason, but what was particularly expressed to be treason in the statute of 25 E. III., and so referred it wholly to the judgment of this house." Lords' Journals, 17th December 1644.
[268] Lords' Journals, 4th January. It is not said to be done nem. con.
[269] "The difference in the temper of the common people of both sides was so great that they who inclined to the parliament left nothing unperformed that might advance the cause; whereas they who wished well to the king thought they had performed their duty in doing so, and that they had done enough for him, in that they had done nothing against him." Clarendon, pp. 3, 452. "Most of the gentry of the county (Nottinghamshire)," says Mrs. Hutchinson, "were disaffected to the parliament; most of the middle sort, the able substantial freeholders and the other commons, who had not their dependence upon the malignant nobility and gentry, adhered to the parliament."—P. 81. This I conceive to have been the case in much the greater part of England. Baxter, in his Life, p. 30, says just the same thing in a passage worthy of notice. But the Worcestershire populace, he says, were violent royalists, p. 39. Clarendon observes in another place (iii. 41), "There was in this county (Cornwall), as throughout the kingdom, a wonderful and superstitious reverence towards the name of a parliament, and a prejudice to the power of the court." He afterwards (p. 436) calls "an implicit reverence to the name of a parliament, the fatal disease of the whole kingdom." So prevalent was the sense of the king's arbitrary government, especially in the case of ship-money. Warburton remarks, that he never expressed any repentance, or made any confession in his public declarations, that his former administration had been illegal. Notes on Clarendon, p. 566. But this was not, perhaps, to be expected; and his repeated promises to govern according to law might be construed into tacit acknowledgments of past errors.
[270] The associated counties, properly speaking, were at first Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Hertford, Cambridge; to which some others were added. Sussex, I believe, was not a part of the association; but it was equally within the parliamentary pale, though the gentry were remarkably loyal in their inclinations. The same was true of Kent.
[271] Clarendon, passim; May, 160; Baillie, i. 416. See, in the Somers Tracts, v. 495, a dialogue between a gentleman and a citizen, printed at Oxford, 1643. Though of course a royalist pamphlet, it shows the disunion that prevailed in that unfortunate party, and inveighs against the influence of the papists, in consequence of which the Marquis of Hertford is said to have declined the king's service. Rupert is praised, and Newcastle struck at. It is written, on the whole, in rather a lukewarm style of loyalty. The Earl of Holland and Sir Edward Dering gave out as their reason for quitting the king's side, that there was great danger of popery. This was much exaggerated; yet Lord Sunderland talks the same language. Sidney Papers, ii. 667. Lord Falkland's dejection of spirits, and constant desire of peace, must chiefly be ascribed to his disgust with the councils of Oxford, and the greater part of those with whom he was associated.
E quel che più ti graverà le spalle
Sarà la compagnia malvagia e ria,
Nella quel tu cadrai in questa valle.