pointed, and at four, going away for an hour, he gave Hotham that time to consider of it. On his return at five Hotham still refused entrance to more than before, when Charles proclaimed him a traitor, and rode off with the prince and his guard to Beverley. The next day he sent a herald to offer Hotham pardon and promotion on surrender of the town, but in vain; and he then returned to York. A warm correspondence took place betwixt the enraged king and the parliament, in which the latter spoke plainer truth to the monarch than monarchs had heard for ages. In reply to his indignant remonstrance, that he demanded the town, the arms, and ammunition as his own property, the parliament stripped away all the fiction of the state's property being the king's. They informed him that national property was not his, but the nation's, and was by courtesy only called the king's, because intrusted to him for the administration of the state's affairs. If the towns were the king's, where was the property of the subjects; but that the towns were not the king's any more than the kingdom was the king's, and the kingdom was no more the king's than the people's own lives and persons were the king's. This, they said, was the language which had infused into the minds of kings the erroneous notions that kingdoms were their own, and that they might do what they would; as if kingdoms were for them, and not they for the kingdoms. This was the root of all their invasions of the rights and liberties of the people, a gross delusion; the very jewels of the crown belonging not to the king, but merely lent him for the use and ornament of his royal dignity. The power intrusted to him, they reminded him, must be used by advice and consent of parliament, without which it was nothing.
If the spirit of Henry VIII. could but have listened to such language from subjects to a king! How mightily the times were changed! What a proud revolution of soul and language had sprung forth in the nation from the slumbering deeds of Magna Charta, through the dauntless labours and patriotic devotion of such men as Pym, Hampden, Selden, Hollis, Elliot, Haselrig, and Cromwell. They proceeded to inform him of their knowledge of the traitorous endeavours making abroad, and thereupon justified their refusal to put Hull into his power.
Having failed in one stratagem to secure this important seaport, Charles and his advisers now sought another. A lieutenant Fawkes, serving in Hull, had married the daughter of a Mr. Beckwith, of Beverley. Beckwith wrote to Fawkes, desiring him to come to Beverley, to speak with him. This letter Fawkes showed to Hotham's secretary, who laid it before the governor. By him it was arranged that Fawkes should go to Beverley, and make himself master of the object of the invitation. He was warmly welcomed by his father-in-law, and introduced to a number of gentlemen, all of whom were strangers to him, except one who had a mask on, and whom he recognised as Sir Jocelyn Percy, a catholic living in Beverley. All, who were professedly warm friends of the king, were extremely civil to Fawkes, and said they were certain that he and his captain could mean no disloyalty to the king, but consented to do what they did in Hull as soldiers. They told him that if he and his captain would find some way of surrendering the king's own town to him, the king would guarantee one thousand pounds a year to the captain, and five hundred pounds a year to himself, as well as one thousand pounds in money. The lieutenant fell very naturally into the scheme in appearance, promised to do his best, took fifty gold pieces which were offered him as an earnest, and arranged to correspond with his father-in-law on the subject.
On returning to Hull, and detailing the overture to the governor, it was determined to appear to favour the design. Fawkes wrote, saying that all promised well. A correspondence was kept up with the parties in Beverley, and at length it was fixed that on a certain night the king should send one thousand horse to Hull, with five hundred foot soldiers riding behind the horsemen, and that they should be admitted at two o'clock in the morning. This being accepted, Hotham then laid the matter before a council of war, when the officers were for letting in the soldiers, and then cutting them to pieces. But Hotham had probably his instructions from parliament not to commence the bloodshed, and he therefore sent a messenger post haste to York, to inform the king that the whole scheme was known to him. Parliament sent public thanks to Sir John, and arrested Beckwith, who, however, was rescued out of the officers' hands by the king's followers. Hotham, to prevent any further attempts to seize the arms and ammunition, shipped them off to London.
Each party now hastened to raise forces and prepare for the struggle. On the 5th of May the parliament issued a declaration that as the king refused his consent to the militia bill, they called on all men to obey their own ordinance for the raising of forces and the defence of the king. In this ordinance they nominated the lieutenants of counties, who nominated their deputy-lieutenants, subject to the approbation of parliament. Amongst these deputies appeared Hampden, Whitelock, St. John, Selden, Maynard, Grimston, and other leaders of parliament, who now became equally zealous enrollers and drillers of soldiers. The king, on his side, denounced the order as traitorous and illegal, forbade all men obeying it, and summoned a county meeting at York for promoting the levy of troops for his service. At that meeting we find Sir Thomas Fairfax stepping forward as a parliamentary leader, and laying on the pommel of the king's saddle a strong remonstrance from the freeholders and farmers of Yorkshire, who advised the king to come to an agreement with his parliament.
The country was now come to that crisis when every man must make up his mind, and show to which side of the question he leaned. It was a day of wonderful searching of characters and interests, and many strange revolutions took place. Towns, villages, families, now appeared in convulsion and strife, and some fell one way, some another, not without much heart-ache and many tears, old friends and kindred parting asunder, to meet again only to shed each others' blood. Then was there a strange proclaiming and contradiction of proclamations, one party denouncing and denying the proceedings of the other. The king raised only a troop of horse and a regiment of foot; the parliament soon found themselves at the head of eight thousand men, consisting of six regiments, commanded by zealous officers, and the month of May saw the fields of Finsbury white with tents, and major-general Skipton manoeuvring his train-bands.
