with the Scots at Ripon, 1st October 1640,[1] by and by transferred to London, went peaceably on at a very leisurely pace. The Scotch Army lay quartered at Newcastle, and over Northumberland and Durham, on an allowance of 850l. a-day; an Army indispensable for Puritan objects; no haste in finishing its Treaty. The English Army lay across in Yorkshire, without allowance except from the casualties of the King’s Exchequer; in a dissatisfied manner, and occasionally getting into ‘Army-Plots.’
This Parliament, which met on the 3d of November 1640, has become very celebrated in History by the name of the Long Parliament. It accomplished and suffered very singular destinies; suffered a Pride’s Purge, a Cromwell’s Ejectment; suffered Reinstatements, Re-ejectments; and the Rump or Fag-end of it did not finally vanish till 16th March 1659-60. Oliver Cromwell sat again in this Parliament for Cambridge Town; Meautys, his old Colleague, is now changed for John Lowry, Esquire,[2] probably a more Puritanic man. The Members for Cambridge University are the same in both Parliaments.
TO MY LOVING FRIEND MR. WILLINGHAM, AT HIS HOUSE IN SWITHIN’S LANE: THESE
Sir,—I desire you to send me the Reasons of the Scots to enforce their desire of Uniformity in Religion, expressed in their 8th Article; I mean that which I had before of you. I would peruse it against we fall upon that Debate, which will be speedily. Yours,
- ↑ Rushworth, iii. 1282
- ↑ Willis; Rushworth, iv. 3. See Cooper’s Annals of Cambridge (London, 1845), iii. 303-4.
- ↑ The words within double commas, here as always in the Text of Cromwell’s Letters, are mine, not his; the date in this instance is conjectural or inferential.
- ↑ Harris, p. 517; Sloane Mss. no. 2035, f. 126.
