the scholars, encouraged by their principals, bought arms, formed themselves into companies, and laying aside their academical studies, were instructed in the art of war, and performed the military exercises under their respective captains and leaders. Such was the zeal of the vice-chancellor Dr. Pink, that not content with marshalling the university, he promoted the king's commission of array among the townsmen, and received one of his majesty's troops of horse into garrison, for which he was afterwards apprehended and committed to the Gate-house at Westminster. The parliament, provoked with this behaviour of the university, threatened to quarter some of their own regiments upon them, which frightened away half the scholars, and put the rest into such a terrible panic, that the vice-chancellor thought proper to write the following submissive letter to the earl of Pembroke their chancellor :

"Right honourable :

"May it please your lordship to know, that this university is now in extreme danger of suffering all the calamities that warlike forces may bring upon it*. Such forces, we hear for certain, are some of them already on their march, and others are raising to assault us; and if they may have their wills, to destroy us! My lord, you have been solicitous whom to appoint your chancellor for next year, but if these forces come forward, and do that execution upon us that we fear they intend, there will be no use at all for a vice-chancellor, for what will be here for him to do, where there will be no scholars for him to govern? Or what should scholars do here, having no libraries left them to study in, no schools to dispute in, chapels to serve God in, colleges or halls to live or lodge in, but have all these ransacked, defaced, demolished, so as posterity may have to say, See! here was for a long time, and till such a year, a university of great renown and eminence in all manner of learning and virtue, but now laid utterly waste, and buried in her own ruins. And then the question will be, What! had we no lord chancellor? or was he not able to protect us ?-We are all confident that if your lordship would interpose for us to the honourable houses of parliament for our safety and security, all would be well with us. The delinquents that were sent for are not one of them here at this time. Sir John Byron, with his regiment of troopers, we shall soon prevail with to withdraw from us, if he may with safety march back to the king, who of his own gracious care of us sent him hither. And if your lordship shall be secured, that no other forces shall be here imposed upon us, that will take the liberty to exercise that barbarous insolence with which the illiterately rude and ruffianly rabble of the vulgar threaten us; against such only our young men have lately taken in hand the arms we have (a very few God knows, and in weak hands enough) to save themselves and us from having our libraries fired, our colleges

Rushworth, part 3. vol. 2. p. 11.

pillaged, and our throats cut by them, if they should suddenly break in upon us. And this, my lord, is all the sinful intent we have had in permitting them to train in a voluntary and peaceable manner so as they have done. Good, my lord, that which I most earnestly beg of your honour is, that at the humble request of the university you would put in action with all speed, what may be most prevalent with the parliament for the peace and security of this place, and for the staying of our students, a great part of whom (such stout and hardy men are they), upon alarms and frights, such as have been hourly here of late, are fled away from us home to their mothers. The disciples, when in danger of drowning, clamoured our Saviour, Master, carest thou not that we perish? But I am bold to assume for your honour, and to assure all of this university under your happy government, that you will not suffer us to perish; and that you will at this time give us a clear and real evidence of it, having this representation of the peril we are now in, made to your honour by me,

"Your lordship's humble servant,

"Sept. 12, 1642." "Provost, vice-chancellor of Oxford." This letter being sent two months after the university had conveyed their plate and money to the king; after they had refused to send up such principal managers of that affair as the parliament had demanded; after they had taken up arms, and received a regiment of his majesty's forces into garrison, the earl of Pembroke only returned the following angry answer:

“

« Sir,

"If you had desired my advice and assistance in time, I should willingly have contributed my best endeavours for your safety and protection, but your own unadvised counsels and actions have reduced you to the straits you are now in: and in discretion you might have foreseen, that the admitting cavaliers, and taking up arms, could not but make the university a notorious mark of opposition against the parliament, and therefore to be opposed by it. If you had contained yourselves within the decent modest bounds of a university, you might justly have challenged me, if I had not performed the duty of a chancellor. The best counsel I now can give you is, that you presently dismiss the cavaliers, and yield up to the parliament such delinquents as are among you; then the cause being taken away the effect will follow. When you have put yourselves into the right posture of a university, I will be a faithful servant to you, and ready to do you all the good offices I can with the parliament, as I am now sorry you have brought upon yourselves these troubles.

"Sept. 13, 1642."

66

"I rest your very true friend,
"PEMBROKE and MONTGOMERY."

Cambridge university followed the example of Oxford, for upon reading his majesty's letter of June 29 to the vice-chancellor Dr. Holdsworth, they readily agreed also to intrust the king with their

public money: what the whole sum amounted to does not appear; but may be guessed by the particulars of one college, a receipt for which is preserved among the archives, and is as follows:

“July 2, 1642. “Received, the day and year above written, of Wm. Beale, doctor in divinity, master of St. John's college in the university of Cambridge, for the king's use (according to the intendment and direction of his majesty's letters of the 29th of June last, to the vice-chancellor of the said university) the sum of 1501. I say, received from the treasury of the said college by me*,

"John Polev."

This Mr. Poley was fellow of Pembroke-hall, and one of the proctors of the university. When the king had secured their money, he sent to borrow their plate, under pretence of preserving it from the parliament; for this purpose he wrote another letter to the vice-chancellor, with directions to take an exact account, not only of the weight but also of the form of every piece, together with the names, arms, and mottoes, of the respective donors, that if his majesty should not preserve it as entire as it was, he might restore it hereafter in the same weight and form, and with the same marks, all which he ensured upon his royal word. There is no account remaining of what plate the colleges delivered up for his majesty's use, though many wished, says Mr. Fuller, that every ounce had been a pound for his sake; but in the treasury of St. John's college there are the particulars of what plate that college delivered in, together with the weight, forms, and names, of the chief benefactors, which amounts in the whole, according to avoirdupois weight, to two thousand sixty-five ounces and a half, as expressed in the following receipt:

August 8, 1642.

I do acknowledge that there has been delivered to me, in the race and on the behalf of the waster, fellows, and scholars, of St. John's college in Cambridge, two fir boxes, marked with these three letters, S. J. C, containing in them all the several pieces of plate above written, which said plate weigheth, as appears by the particulars, two thousand sixty-tive ounces and a half, more or less, which they deposited into the king's hands for the security thereof and his majesty's service, according to the tenor of his majesty's lutters, written and directed to the vice-chancellor of the univer John Poley."

Aceeing to this calculation the king right receive from all the enllames together about 8 or 100000 in plate, besides money, Colonel Oliver Cromwell with his company of soldiers endeavoured to safercept the advor, bet under the conduct of Mr. Barnaby Chey there mode, who was ang tainted with all the bye-roads, they the energy, and delivered up ther charge to the king 1000” the tide v hen he was setting up his royal sralard at Not

tingham. Cromwell having missed the convoy returned to Cambridge, and took possession of the town and university for the parliament, who, being acquainted with what was done, sent them an angry message, as they had done to Oxford, full of resentments for their disposing of the public money, contrary to the trust reposed in them. The masters and fellows excused themselves, by alleging the royal mandate; whereupon the two houses sent a mandate of their own to the vice-chancellor and heads of colleges in convocation assembled, desiring them to contribute their assistance to the cause in which they [the parliament] were engaged; but though, as Dr. Barwick observes, the commander of the garrison kept them sitting till midnight they would lend nothing, because they apprehended it to be contrary to religion and a good conscience; the houses therefore ordered Dr. Beal, Dr. Martin, and Dr. Sterne, masters of St. John's, Jesus', and Queen's college, into custody*; upon which many of the scholars deserted their stations, and listed in the king's service.

Besides the two universities the king applied under-hand to the Papists, who were firm to his interest, though he durst not as yet avow his correspondence with them; for in his declaration of June 3, he assures the ministers and freeholders of Yorkshire, that he would not make use of foreigners, or of persons disaffected to the Protestant religion--Again, we have taken order that the power of the sword shall not come into the hands of Papists+August 10, his majesty commands that no Papist should be listed as a soldier in his army; which was expedient, to avoid as much as possible the reproach of an alliance with those people, who were at this time become infamous by the Irish massacre. Though his majesty had but few Roman Catholics among his own forces, the duke of Newcastle's army was filled with them, and Popery was countenanced to that degree at York, that mass was said in every corner of the street, and the Protestants so affronted, that they were almost afraid to go to church‡. The king applied to his

They were immediately after carried to London by Cromwell, and confined in the Tower and other prisons for some years, particularly in the noisome hold of a ship. Dr. Grey; Barwick's Life, p. 32, note (†); and Fuller's History of Cambridge, p. 168.-ED.

Rushworth, part 3. vol. 1. p. 625.

Dr. Grey would impeach the truth of this detail, and says, that as Mr. Neal "quotes no authority for these particulars, I am willing to believe, that they are not all of them true." As to the first particular, I can refer for Mr. Neal to Rapin, vol. 2. p. 468, and the matter has been, within these few years, stated and discussed by Mrs. Macaulay, vol. 3. p. 377, 378, 8vo. The fact was admitted by the earl of Newcastle himself, and he published a long declaration, partly to vindicate himself on this head; which is preserved in Rushworth, part 3. vol. 2. p. 78, &c. Though I am not able to ascertain the authorities on which my author states the other particulars, a letter of intelligence of the affairs in Yorkshire, which the parliament received, and which has been given to the public since Mr. Neal's history appeared, affords a general confirmation to his account. It represents that the Papists, after the king's proclamation for raising his standard, flocked from Ireland, Lancashire, and all parts of Yorkshire, to York; that there were great rejoicings amongst them, and a great forwardness to assist the service shewn. The circumstances represented by our author, were not unnatural or improbable consequences of such a VOL. II.

L

Roman-Catholic subjects to advance two or three years of the rent that they paid as a composition for their estates as recusants; which they not only complied with, but wrote to their friends abroad to borrow more; proclamation was made at Bruges, and other parts of Flanders, that all people who would lend any money to maintain the Roman Catholics in England, should have it repaid in a year's time with many thanks.

The Lancashire Papists, having been lately disarmed by order of parliament, petitioned his majesty, that since the war was begun, their arms might be re-delivered, that they might be in a capacity to defend his majesty's royal person, and their own families. To which his majesty consented in the following words:

"The laws for disarming recusants being to prevent dangers in a time of peace, but not intended to bar you from the use of arms in time of war for your own safety, or the defence of our person--Our will and command therefore is, and we charge and require you upon your allegiance, that with all possible speed you provide sufficient arms for yourselves, your servants, and your tenants, which we authorize and require you to keep and use for the defence of us, yourselves, and your country, against all forces raised against us, under colour of any order or ordinance of parliament; and we shall use our utmost power to protect you and yours against all injuries and violence*.

"Given under our signet at Chester, September 27, in the eighteenth year of our reign."

Agreeably to this, Mr. George Tempest, a priest, writes to his brother in the king's army, "Our priests at Lancaster are at liberty; Catholic commanders are admitted, and all well enough that way; God Almighty, as I hope, will better prosper the cause." And another adds, "that there is no prosecution of priest or Papist in Northumberland."

When the parliament objected this to his majesty, and named the very officers, he was highly displeased, and in his answer makes use of these solemn expressions: "for that continued dishonest accusation, of our inclination to the Papists, which the authors of it in their own consciences know to be most unjust and groundless, we can say no more, and we can do no more, to the satisfaction of the world.--That any priests or Jesuits imprisoned have been released by us out of the jail at Lancaster, or any other jail, is as false as the father of lies can invent. Neither are the persons named in that declaration, to whom commissions are supposed to be granted for places of command in this war, so much as known to us; nor have they any command, or to our knowledge are present in our army. And it is strange, that our

confluence and exultation of the Papists. And it appears from this letter, that the cavaliers in general, were guilty of tumults, outrages, and depredation. Parliamentary History, vol. 11. p. 335. 381. 405, quoted by Mrs. Macaulay, vol. 3. p. 343, 344, 8vo.-Ed.

* Rushworth, vol. 2. part 3. p. 50.