days of their lives, under the pains contained in the law, and danger both of body and soul in the day of God's fearful judg

ment."

Every threatening and artifice the king tried, to move the Scots from their determination, but it was all in vain. The Scots had taken their stand. The king was forced to allow the calling of a general assembly, but when that assembly was found intractable, he dissolved it, and forbade the members to continue their session under the pains of high treason.

The assembly continued its sessions. The episcopacy, the high commission, the cannons, the liturgy, were thrown down and abolished. Like the acts of the Continental Congress in the American Revolution, the acts of that assembly were sustained by the determination of the people, and were therefore law. "Thus," says Hume, "the whole fabric which James and Charles, in a course of years, had been rearing with so much care and policy, fell to the ground."

You will fix in your minds the chronology of these events, by observing that they were cotemporaneous with the first settlements in Connecticut. These things occurred between the time when the few adventurers came through the wilderness from Watertown, in Massachusetts, and began the settlement of Weathersfield in 1635, and the beginning of the plantation of New Haven in 1638.

And now King Charles approaches the crisis that decides his final destiny. He proclaims his determination to take the field in person against the Scots Covenanters. The principal nobility are summoned to attend his Majesty. Every power of the prerogative is exerted to raise men and money. The bishops exhort the clergy to liberal efforts for his Majesty's support in what they do not scruple to call "The Episcopal War." The archbishop writes for a contribution from the civil courts; requiring his commissary to send him the names of such as should refuse. The queen and her friends undertake for the Roman Catholics; who well approve their zeal and liberality in so holy a cause. English nation is roused to a crusade for forcing bishops and a Liturgy upon the poor Scots; whose resources in money are nothing; and who have not three thousand stand of arms in the nation.

The

Every pulpit in Scotland rang with the "rights of conscience," and "freedom to worship God." Every Scotsman was a soldier, determined for freedom or a grave.

With a formidable fleet and a powerful army, King Charles came and looked on the Scots; and suddenly entered into a negotiation to withdraw his fleet and army, while the Scots should dismiss their forces. Charles was insincere: but the Scots were

wary. They ordered every officer to be ready at a moment's warning, and every soldier to make his account for another invasion.

With great difficulty Charles drew together another army. But his means were exhausted: his credit was gone. Thus ended his experiment of an arbitrary government for twelve. years. He was forced to call a Parliament. The Parliament deemed it more their duty to redress the wrongs of their own nation, than to furnish the king with the means of renewing the Episcopal War.

The indomitable Pym called the attention of Parliament to the wrongs in Church and State. Inquiry was made concerning persons illegally detained in prison. The Parliament began to look into the affair of ship-money. The king, in anger, hastily dissolved the Parliament. He summoned the offending members before the council, and cast them into prison. He borrowed money. He forced loans. Every dishonorable and illegal method was resorted to, to furnish means; and being at length prepared, he marched his army once more against the Scots.

The Scots were ready, and advanced to meet him. Every man carried his week's provision of oatmeal; and they took a drove of cattle to furnish them with meat. They had no cannon, but a fertile invention supplied this deficiency. "They prepared," says Burnet,* "an invention of guns of white iron, tinned, and done about with leather, and corded so that they could serve for two or three discharges." These were light, and were carried on horses. Thus furnished, they advanced, they said, "To meet their gracious Sovereign ;" and with all coolness and civility, entreated the opposing troops not to stop them in their way. When these did not comply with their request, they attacked them with an irresistible onset. Those tinned guns saved the nation; proved the ruin of Charles; and perhaps saved the English liberties. The English, thinking the Scots destitute of artillery, were surprised and struck with a panic at the first discharge. Their whole army fled. The Scots pressed on to the collieries; and by cutting off the supply of fuel, had London at their mercy. They advanced to Durham; and maintaining the exactest discipline, plundering nothing, taking nothing without pay, they sent messengers with redoubled expressions of loyalty to their gracious sovereign; and made apologies full of sorrow and contrition for the necessity that had forced them to achieve the victory.

Thus ended the second crusade of King Charles I., for forcing Episcopacy and a Liturgy upon the Presbyterians of Scotland. His resources were now so exhausted, that he must either call a Parliament or cease to reign. The nation, injured, indignant,

* Burnet's Hist. of His Own Times.

and long groaning under every outrage upon the Constitution and laws, was now to be heard. The necessities which forced Charles to call a Parliament, forced him also to give his consent that they should not be dissolved, save by their own act. Thus began the Long Parliament on the 3d November, 1640: the very year when the pioneers of the first fathers of this town* began to clear away the unbroken forests that covered these shores.

Never was there a greater array of talent and patriotism in an English Parliament. Even Lord Clarendon admits that "There were many great and worthy patriots in the house, and as eminent as any age had ever produced." The difficult times; the long continued debates; the deep reflection upon the principles of law, and of popular rights, had awakened a mighty array of talent and the people, aware of the crisis, had returned to Parliament their ablest and best tried men. In every crisis of the kind, the times produce a race of men adequate to the emergency. It was in those times, as when the long continued aggressions of Britain upon these colonies, and the long debates, and long continued times of peril, had brought into being that race of men · who accomplished the American Revolution: a race not less distinguished for their intellectual greatness than for their pure devotion to their country, and for their heroism. Even Hume pays the highest compliment to the distinguished character of the Long Parliament." This was the time," he says, "when genius and capacity of all kinds, freed from the restraint of authority, and nourished by unbounded hopes and projects, began to exert themselves and to be distinguished by the public. There was celebrated the sagacity of Pym, more fitted for use than ornament; matured, not chilled, by his advancing age and long experience." There was Hampden, "supported," says Hume, "by courage, conducted by prudence, embellished by modesty." There was Selden, whose name will ever be considered as one of the ornaments of English history. There was Cromwell; and whatever else may be said of him, this at least will scarcely be disputed, that never was the sceptre of England wielded by a more vigorous or sagacious hand. His Protectorship, compared with any preceding age, or with several ages succeeding, was an era of toleration, justice, and law. Weakened as she was by the civil wars, England rose to respect and greatness abroad; and foreign tyrants and persecutors trembled at Cromwell's name. At one word from Cromwell, the persecutions against the Waldenses ceased. The Duke of Savoy and Cardinal Mazarin gnashed their teeth with rage; but with the whole power of France at command, they durst not raise a finger more against the Waldenses while Cromwell lived. "All Italy," says Bishop Burnet,

* Norwalk.

"trembled at the name of Cromwell, and seemed under a panic as long as he lived. His fleet scoured the Mediterranean; and the Turks" [who had been the terror of Europe]" durst not offend him." Power, scenes of strife, and living so long amid plots and tumults, corrupted his religious character; so that in his latter days he was not what he once was; but future ages will yet wipe off the stigmas of ignorance, fanaticism, brutality, and hypocrisy, that have been so diligently cast upon the name of Cromwell. The men of secondary rank in that Parliament, as Hetherington has well remarked, "were possessed of talents and energy enough to have earned a high renown in any period less prodigal of human power."

It cannot be pretended that all their measures were entirely moderate or wise. The times were unfavorable. The English people were not, like the American people at their Revolution, prepared for a Republic. The past history of the world did not hold out sufficient light to guide the great experiment. Causes beyond their control; casualties to human power inevitable, hindered the results of their labors. Divine Providence overruled. But what man may be expected to do, they did. It is not certain that any amount of human wisdom or energy, in their circumstances, could have done more. Even Hume confesses, that, "What rendered the power of the Commons more formidable, was the extreme prudence with which it was conducted."

These were now become the vindicators of the laws and constitution against the fickle and irresolute King Charles, the bigoted and vindictive Laud, and the aspiring Wentworth, Earl of Strafford; himself a host, though on the side of tyranny. It was not to be expected that such a Parliament would be swift to furnish the king with means for carrying on the Episcopal war in Scotland, while those same means might be further employed against their own liberties. They impeached the Earl of Strafford for various overt acts aimed at subverting the fundamental laws of England. While the bill of attainder was yet before the House of Lords, a conspiracy was detected by which the king was to bring the army, raised against the Scots, up to London, to overawe the Commons, seize the town, release the Earl of Strafford, place him at the head of the Irish Papists, call over succors from France, and lay the liberties and religion of the people at the feet of the king.*

An impeachment of high treason was brought against Laud. The Lord Keeper Finch, who, on the bench of justice, had proved himself the willing tool of the king and council, and had poisoned the very laws in their administration, took the alarm and fled. The Commons took hold of those who had been the instruments

*Neale.

of illegal exactions. The judges who had condemned Hampden in the trial of ship-money were accused before the peers. The sentence which had been executed against Prynne, Bastwick, and Leighton, underwent an examination. The long captivity of these injured men was broken. They were brought from their distant prisons in the isles of Scilly and Jersey. The people met them at their landing, with shouts of joy, and swelled the tide of their attendants on their triumphant journey to London. Their mutilated members could not be restored, but redress was given them against those who had pronounced and inflicted the illegal punishment. The Parliament by a unanimous vote abolished the courts of the Star-Chamber and the High Commission. They abridged and regulated the authority of the council. To all these things Charles, either through weakness or necessity, yielded his royal assent, though the sequel shows that he did it with a hollow heart, and with the full determination to regain his despotic power as soon as it could be done, by flattery, by treachery, or by force.

As this Parliament abolished the system of Prelacy in Englund, it is now necessary to give some attention to the causes

which more immediately led to that event. It was no predetermination on the part of the members of that Parliament. "As to their religion," says Lord Clarendon, "they were all members of the Established Church, and almost to a man for Episcopal government."* Says another, "who lived through those times," "Both lords and commons were most, if not all, peaceable, orthodox, Church of England men; all conforming to the rites and ceremonies of Episcopacy, but greatly averse to popery, tyranny, and to the corrupt part of that Church that inclined to Rome."†

The change of sentiment in this Parliament, and the change in that able body of ministers and laymen, who composed the Assembly of Divines, is another instance of the repeated rise of Puritan principles, as opposed to the Prelatic, among men, by education, by habit, and by prejudice, strongly biased in favor of Episcopacy.

The circumstances which led to so great a change of sentiment, were these. After the king had so suddenly dissolved the last Parliament, finding the prelates and clergy so much in favor, not only of his "Episcopal war," but of his claims to despotic power, he gave, under the great seal, his commission to the Convocation to reassemble and continue their sitting. If the Parliament would not bind the nation to slavery by law, the prelates seemed determined to do it by their canons. The Convocation proceeded to ordain seventeen canons; and first, concerning the † Moulin in Neale.

* Neale.