[298] A list of contributors is printed in Choice Notes, Historical, p. 55.
[299] Such a contribution from William Bridge and his family is described in the Yarmouth Corporation Records.
[300] Baxter assigns a number of reasons which induced godly people to take side with the Parliament.—Life and Times, part i. 33. Mrs. Hutchinson, in the Memoirs of her husband, gives amusing sketches of some who joined that party for sinister ends, pp. 105-116. The Life of Adam Martindale, p. 31, indicates how Royalists sought shelter amidst Parliamentarians.
[301] It is worthy of remark that Cromwell began his military course at about forty, the same age as that at which Cæsar commenced his victories. Cæsar, however, when a young man, had served in the army, which Cromwell had not. It is a curious parallel that both should have been such successful soldiers after so long an engagement in peaceful occupations. Both died at the age of about fifty-five.
[302] Rushworth, v. 39.
[303] A small volume was published containing portions of Scripture, and was entitled The Souldier's Pocket Bible.
[304] As to the presence of Roman Catholics in the two armies, the following passages from Baxter and Hallam should be considered:—
Baxter, whose prejudices against the army must be borne in mind when he refers to the subject, only expresses suspicion. "The most among Cromwell's soldiers that ever I could suspect for Papists were but a few that began as strangers among the common soldiers, and by degrees rose up to some inferior offices, and were most conversant with the common soldiers; but none of the superior officers seemed such, though seduced by them."—Life and Times, part i. 78.
Hallam leans to the idea that the common reports had some foundation. He remarks: "It is probable that some foreign Catholics were in the Parliament's service. But Dodds says, with great appearance of truth, that no one English gentleman of that persuasion was in arms on their side.—Church History of England, iii. 28. He reports, as a matter of hearsay, that out of about 500 gentlemen who lost their lives for Charles in the civil war, 194 were Catholics. They were, doubtless, a very powerful faction in the court and army."—Hallam's Const. Hist. i. 587.
[305] Hibbert's History of Manchester, i. 210.