Secretary Nicholas writes to the King, 5th of February, 1644: "This morning we are to observe the fast, according to your Majesty's proclamation; but it must be done here in the inn, for we cannot be permitted to have the Book of Common Prayer read in the church here, and we resolve not to go to any church where the Divine service established by law may not be celebrated." "You have done well, but they barbarously," Charles writes in the margin. But in the prayer appointed by the King the war is described as "unnatural," and the Almighty is entreated "to let the truth clearly appear, who those are which, under pretence of the public good, do pursue their own private ends." It was not likely the Parliament would allow that prayer to be used.—Nicholas' Correspondence, Evelyn, iv. 136.
[526] The other chief subjects were the militia and Irish affairs.
[527] Rushworth, v. 818.
[528] Evelyn, iv. 137.
[529] In the British Museum there is a petition, presented in the year 1647, complaining of many hundreds of towns and villages destitute of any preaching ministry, by occasion whereof ignorance, drunkenness, profaneness, disaffection, &c., abound.
[530] Husband's Col., 645.
[531] See ordinance dated November the 8th, 1645, in Rushworth, vi. 212, and Baillie's Letters, ii. 349.
[532] Letters and Journals, ii. 145.
[533] Letters and Journals, ii. 146.
[534] Neal, iii. 309.