petitioned against this appointment, and Lord
Newport, the constable, was asked to take the active
command. But Lord Newport was no special
friend to the king, and the king was no special
friend to him; so Charles found his pretext of
dismissal in a certain speech reputed to have
been made by the noble lord, who was said to
have alluded to the queen and princes as
hostages, if Charles should attempt to overawe the
Parliament by means of the army of the North.
On the 24th of December, Charles deprived
Lord Newport of his office as Constable of the
Tower, because of this report, which, when
earnestly denied, his Majesty had " expressed
his sorrow that his lordship's memory should be
so bad." On the 29th, thinking it good to
change his tactics, he told the House that he
had never believed the charge, and wished it
withdrawn.

What can be said for a nature so vacillating,
so untrue, so unscrupulous as this?

It was in the tumults rising out of the affair of
the Tower, that the words Cavalier and Roundhead
were first heard of: of which latter word
all ordinary orthodox men had such a horror,
that a good old Hampshire vicar was wont to
say in the Church service, " Oh, Lord, in Thee
have I trusted, let me never be a Roundhead!"
But Charles had a mighty thorn in his anointed
side: Pym, the most popular and powerful man
of his time—King Pym, as he was called—one of
the twelve who took up the Declaration to King
James, at sight of which twelve the crusty,
quick-witted old pedant cried out, " Chairs! chairs!
here be twal' kynges comin'!" Pym, whom
Charles half feared, half desired, and would have
gladly had into his service if so be he could not
bring him to the scaffold instead—Pym was that
sticking thorn. On his return from Scotland,
Charles was bent on charging Pym and Hampden
with treasonable correspondence with the leaders
of the Scottish army of Covenanters: though he
had passed an act of grace to the Scottish army
altogether, and it was therefore scarcely logical
to impeach English members for correspondence
with the same. Not carrying out this benevolent
intention, he then tried the " stratagem of
winning men by places," and reinvited Pym to
be his Chancellor of the Exchequer. "The
king is too flexible and good-natured," writes
Sir Edward Dering to his wife, "for within two
howres and a great deall lesse, before he made
Culpeper Chancellor of the Exchequer, he had
sent a message to bring Pym unto him, and
would have given him that place." "But," says
Mr. Forster, "unfortunately for Charles I., it
was almost always a matter of doubt with him
whether he should crush or cajole an antagonist;
and such was his vice of temperament, that,
whichever resolve he might finally take, was sure
to be taken too late." So Charles tried to win
over Pym to his councils when he found he could
not coerce him, and again he tried to coerce
him when he found that he could not win him
over; and, failing in both attempts, he got the
shame and the odium belonging to both. This
second proffer of the king's to the sturdy old
Roundhead first sees the light in Mr. Forster's
remarkable pages, and is one of his greatest
historical discoveries, for the insight it gives into
the king's character and actions.

The first blood drawn in the civil war, was shed
on the 27th of December, 1641, when the citizens
crowded about the House, crying out, " No
Bishops!" and when one of the Cavaliers, willing
to correct the sauciness of a knave who
was brawling by his side, drew his sword and
"slashed" him— him, first of many to be slashed
this way and that, in the stern days coming
on. Thus, Lunsford "chased" the citizens,
and the citizens yelled at Lunsford and tore
Archbishop Williams's gown, and hustled and
hooted at the rest of the right reverend bench;
and there were hurly-burlies at Westminster,
leading no man knew whither, and specially
disquieting to those of the more sober sort.
Then, the bishops not liking their rough treatment
of the mob, made a declaration that this
was not a free parliament, and that they could
not take their seats because of the riots. The
meaning of this plot being, that, if this were
fairly understood, the king could hereafter
rescind all the acts passed, on pretence of
their not having been freely and fairly carried.
The declaration was drawn up and signed at
Archbishop Williams's lodgings, and the next
morning the reverend father carried it betimes
to Whitehall, where he met by chance (?) Lord
Keeper Littleton and the king. He gave the
protest into their hands—as had evidently been
agreed on—and the pretty little stratagem
seemed in a fair way of success. But within half
an hour of the time when the Commons knew
of this intrigue, the prelatic conspirators were
kneeling as accused traitors at the bar of the
Lords; and by eight o'clock, that bitter winter's
evening of frost and snow, ten out of the twelve
were shivering in the Tower. The remaining
two were excused by reason of their great age.
So, Williams and his pitiless foe, old Laud, went
under the harrow of a common affliction, and each
found marvellous consolation in the knowledge
that the other was suffering equally with
himself. Their arrest was Cromwell's doing; and
in the last Parliament, when he was Protector,
and more absolute than even Charles himself
had been, he spoke with pride of the check-mate
which he had played off so deftly in his first.

Not liking the look of things, but always
desirous of acting legally, Pym moved for a
guard for the House of Commons, and on Friday,
the 31st, Denzil Holles took a verbal message
to Charles, petitioning to be allowed a guard
of train bands, commanded by the Earl of Essex.
The king, always seeking to temporise and gain
time, required the message in writing; so the
Commons, to whom this was no satisfactory
answer, filled the House with their own halberds,
and set their own watches. On Saturday, being
New Year's-day, they adjourned; but there was
'no adjournment at Whitehall. The king made
a few fresh court appointments, of such men as
he thought he could depend on, and then
prepared the document which was to baffle his