1640 to obtain a loan from APPEALS TO SPAIN AND ROME. 175 with the Londoners, Strafford was pleading equally in vain with Fresh efforts the Spanish ambassadors. Almost imploringly the proud and haughty minister adjured the Spaniards Spain. to come to his aid. If the proposed league and the consequent advance of 300,000l. was not at once to be obtained, would they not lend his master 150,000l. in his present straits, and defer the remainder till after the signature of the league? If even that was not to be had, he would content himself with 100,000l., half to be paid at the end of the month, and half three or four weeks later. He would give his personal security for its repayment in November. The Spaniards replied that they had no orders to lend the money, but added a general assurance of their inaster's goodwill, which can hardly have conveyed much satisfaction to Strafford.1 Almost at the Similar application to France. 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.2 The Queen, too, had her share of disappointment; the reply to the request which had been made in her name, in the The Pope height of the tumults in May, arrived from Rome. will not lend. 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.3 The complete failure to obtain money increased the diffiProposal to culty 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 bring in Danish soldiers. 1 Velada, Malvezzi, and Cardenas to Philip IV., Sec. Esp. cclxxxv. ful. 47. July 23 Brussels MSS. amongst the mutineers; and this project was only abandoned through the absolute impossibility of finding the money for the levy.1 to be exe cuted. If Danish soldiers were not to be had, at least the English officers might be empowered to execute martial law. “You July 25. may now hang with more authority," wrote NorthumMartial law berland 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 speedy way be not found to get the rest presently, I do not think that I shall pass the Trent this year.' 2 Communion down. In the eastern counties the unruliness of the soldiers assumed a new form. At Bocking the clergyman was so ill-advised as to attempt to propitiate the men by the gift of a rails pulled 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. 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.3 In At the back of this ill news came a great petition from the Aug. 3' Giustinian to the Doge, July 24, Ven. Transcripts. That this was so is shown by the instructions given on Aug. 6 by Christian IV. to his ambassadors Ulfeld 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. Fridericia from the Copenhagen archives. See his Danmarks ydre politiske Historie, 1635-1645, p. 258. 2 Northumberland to Conway, July 25, S. P. Dom. cccclxi. 16. Maynard to the Council, July 27. Warwick to Vane, July 27, ibid. cccclxi. 23, 24. 1640 July 28. The York. shire petition. THE YORKSHIRE PETITION. 177 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 July 30. in the face of approaching invasion. His daring It is prespirit never quailed, but he could no longer inspire sented to the King. his fellow-councillors with his own audacity. To them the case, as well it might, seemed altogether desperate. Peacethey thought, must now be bought at any price. Roe, the Negotiations opponent of the debasement of the coinage, was to to be opened. carry 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 The City again refuses 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.' 2 to lend. able. If it was unlikely that the Londoners would place confidence. in the honeyed words of the King now that he was in such War inevit 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 whatever interpretation 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 1 Rushworth, iii. 1214. 2 Rossingham's News-Letter, Aug. 4, S. P. Dom. cccclxiii. 33. Mon treuil's despatch, Aug. Bibl. Nat. Fr. 15,995, fol. 107. Giustinian to the Doge, Aug. 6 16' Ven. Trans its R. O. VOL. IX 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, together with the growth of the belief in the existence of a gigantic Popish plot,' had put an end to 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. 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. Communications be tween the Scots and leaders. There can be little doubt, indeed, that secret messages had passed between the Scots and the English leaders. Before Loudoun had left London he had been in communication with Lord Savile, the son of Strafford's old rival, who had inherited the personal antipathies of his the English father, and whose hatred of Strafford placed him by the side of men of higher aims than his own. Το him, as the recognised organ of the English malcontents, Johnston of Warriston addressed a letter on June 23, just June 23. Johnston's at the moment when Leslie's army was first gathering letter to Savile. at Leith. After expressing the not unnatural desire of the Scottish 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 on its entrance into Northumberland, or would send money for its support. 1 The communications through Frost, noticed by Burnet (Hist. of Own Times, i. 27) seem to relate to the period before the Short Parliament. 1640 AN INVITATION TO THE SCOTS. 179 July 8. Answer of the Peers. This letter passed through Loudoun's hands, and 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, Saye, Mandeville, and Savile himself. It contained a distinct refusal to cominit a treasonable act, and an assurance that the English who had stood by the Scots in the last Parliament would continue to stand by them in a legal and honourable way. Their enemics 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. Towards the end of July, or early in August, Savile sent them what they wanted. He forged the signatures of the peers with such skill that, when the document was afterwards submitted to their inspection, not one of them was able to point out a single turn of the pen by which the forgery might have been detected.1 Savile's forged engagement. 1 I have probably surprised many of my readers by the facility with which I have accepted as genuine the letters printed by Oldmixon (Hist. of Engl. 141). 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 which he ascribes to Johnston, to the Peers, and to Savile, are written in so distinct a style, and that style is so evidently appropriate to the character and position of the writers, as to require in a forger 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 none of those which I have succeeded in testing are incorrect. The prediction, indeed, that the troops would be on the Borders on July 10 anticipated reality by ten days; but this is just the mistake which Johnston, writing before the event, would be likely to make, and which a skilful forger would avoid. On the other hand, the strongest evidence in favour of the letters is derived from the argument by which Disraeli satisfied himself of their supposititious character. He asks how Oldmixon came to place the seven names at the end of the Peers' letter, when he assures us that those names were cut out from the original? My answer to this is that the letter produced by Old. mixon is not what he alleges it to be. The story of cutting out the names is |