of four men of eighty, more or less; but of aged
women never more than two. Ah, Monsieur,
the Morgue is not a very gay place to live in,
but it is a great teacher."

A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

I SHALL not try to relate the particulars of
the great civil war between King Charles the
First and the Long Parliament, which lasted
nearly four years, and a full account of which
would fill many large books. It was a sad
thing that Englishmen should once more be
fighting against Englishmen on English
ground; but, it is some consolation to know
that on both sides there was great humanity,
forbearance and honour. The soldiers of the
Parliament were far more remarkable for
these good qualities than the soldiers of the
King (many of whom fought for mere pay
without much caring for the cause); but those
of the nobility and gentry who were on the
King's side were so brave, and so faithful to
him, that their conduct cannot but command
our highest admiration. Among these were
great numbers of Catholics, who took the
royal side because the Queen was so strongly
of their persuasion.

The King might have distinguished some
of these gallant spirits, if he had been as
generous a spirit himself, by giving them the
command of his army. Instead of that, however,
true to his old high notions of royalty,
he entrusted it to his two nephews, PRINCE
RUPERT and PRINCE MAURICE, who were of
royal blood, and came over from abroad to
help him. It might have been better for him
if they had stayed away, since Prince Rupert
was an impetuous hot-headed fellow, whose
only idea was to dash into battle at all times
and seasons, and lay about him.

The general-in-chief of the Parliamentary
army was the Earl of Essex, a gentleman of
honour and an excellent soldier. A little
while before the war broke out, there had been
some rioting at Westminster between certain
officious law students and noisy soldiers, and
the shopkeepers and their apprentices, and the
general people in the streets. At that time the
King's friends called the crowd, Roundheads,
because the apprentices wore short hair; the
crowd, in return, called their opponents
Cavaliers, meaning that they were a blustering
set, who pretended to be very military.
These two words now began to be used to
distinguish the two sides in the civil war.
The Royalists also called the Parliamentary
men Rebels and Rogues, while the Parliamentary
men called them Malignants, and
spoke of themselves as the Godly, the Honest,
and so forth.

The war broke out at Portsmouth, where
that double traitor Goring had again gone
over to the King and was besieged by the
Parliamentary troops. Upon this, the King
proclaimed the Earl of Essex and the officers
serving under him, traitors, and called upon
his loyal subjects to meet him in arms at
Nottingham on the twenty-fifth of August.
But his loyal subjects came about him in
scanty numbers, and it was a windy gloomy
day, and the Royal Standard got blown down,
and the whole affair was very melancholy.
The chief engagements after this, took place
in the vale of the Red Horse near Banbury,
in Wiltshire, at Brentford, at Devizes, at
Chalgrave Field (where Mr. Hampden was
so sorely wounded while fighting at the head
of his men, that he died within a week), at
Tewkesbury (in which battle LORD FALKLAND,
one of the best noblemen on the King's
side, was killed), at Leicester, at Naseby, at
Winchester, at Marston Moor near York, at
Newcastle, and in many other parts of
England and Scotland. These battles were
attended with various successes. At one
time the King was victorious; at another time
the Parliament. But almost all the great
and busy towns were against the King; and
when it was considered necessary to fortify
London, all ranks of people, from labouring
men and women up to lords and ladies,
worked hard together with heartiness and
good-will. The most distinguished leaders
on the Parliamentary side were HAMPDEN,
SIR THOMAS FAIRFAX, and above all, OLIVER
CROMWELL, and his son-in-law IRETON.

During the whole of this war, the people,
to whom it was very expensive and irksome,
and to whom it was made the more distressing
by almost every family being divided — some
of its members attaching themselves to the
one side and some to the other— were over
and over again most anxious for peace. So
were some of the best men in each cause.
Accordingly, treaties of peace were discussed
between commissioners from the Parliament
and the King; at York, at Oxford (where the
King held a little Parliament of his own),
and at Uxbridge. But they came to nothing.
In all these negociations, and in all his difficulties,
the King showed himself at his best.
He was courageous, cool, self-possessed and
clever; but, the old taint of his character was
always in him, and he was never for one
single moment to be trusted. Lord Clarendon,
the historian, one of his highest admirers,
supposes that he had unhappily promised the
Queen never to make peace without her consent,
and that this must often be taken as his
excuse. He never kept his word from night
to morning. He signed a cessation of hostilities
with the blood-stained Irish rebels
for a sum of money, and invited the Irish
regiments over, to help him against the
Parliament. In the battle of Naseby, his
cabinet was seized and was found to contain
a correspondence with the Queen, in which
he expressly told her that he had deceived
the Parliament— a mongrel Parliament, he
called it now, as an improvement on his old
term of vipers— in pretending to recognize it
and to treat with it; and from which it