soap was dear, and it would not wash, but only blister. The ceremonial Bishops, Bishop or Archbishop Laud now chief of them,—they, on their side, went on diligently hunting out ‘Lecturers,’ erecting ‘altars in the east-end of churches’; charging all clergymen to have, in good repair and order, ‘Four surplices at Allhallowtide.’[1] Vexations spiritual and fiscal, beyond what we can well fancy now, afflicted the souls of men. The English Nation was patient; it endured in silence, with prayer that God in justice and mercy would look upon it. The King of England with his chief-priests was going one way; the Nation of England by eternal laws was going another: the split became too wide for healing. Oliver and others seemed now to have done with Parliaments; a royal Proclamation forbade them so much as to speak of such a thing.
1630
In the ‘new charter’ granted to the Corporation of Huntingdon, and dated 8th July 1630, Oliver Cromwell, Esquire, Thomas Beard, D.D. his old Schoolmaster, and Robert Barnard, Esquire, of whom also we may hear again, are named Justices of the Peace for that Borough.[2] I suppose there was nothing new in this nomination; a mere confirming and continuing of what had already been. But the smallest authentic fact, any undoubted date or circumstance regarding Oliver and his affairs, is to be eagerly laid hold of.
1631
In or soon after 1631, as we laboriously infer from the imbroglio records of poor Noble, Oliver decided on an enlarged sphere of action as a Farmer; sold his properties in Huntingdon, all or some of them; rented certain grazing-lands at St. Ives, five miles down the River, eastward of his native place, and removed thither. The Deed of Sale is dated 7th May 1631;[3] the properties are specified as in the possession of
