# The Works of Thomas Carlyle/Volume 6/Two Years

Layout 4
Such is Oliver’s one Letter from Ely. ‘To guide us a little through the void gulf towards his next Letter, we will here intercalate the following small fractions of Chronology.
1639
May—July. The Scots at their Glasgow Assembly had rent their Tulchan Apparatus in so rough a way, and otherwise so ill comported themselves, his Majesty saw good, in the beginning of this year, immense negotiation and messaging to and fro having proved so futile, to chastise them with an Army. By unheard-of exertions in the Extra-Parliamentary way, his Majesty got an Army ready; marched with it to Berwick,—is at Newcastle, 8th May 1639. But, alas, the Scots, with a much better Army, already lay encamped on Dunse Law; every nobleman with his tenants there, as a drilled regiment, round him; old Fieldmarshal Lesley for their generalissimo; at every Colonel’s tent this pennant flying, For Christ’s Crown and Covenant: there was no fighting to be thought of. Neither could the Pacification there patched up be of long continuance. The Scots disbanded their soldiers; but kept the officers, mostly Gustavus-Adolphus men, still within sight.
1640
The Scotch Pacification, hastily patched up at Dunse Hill. did not last; discrepancies arose as to the practical meaning ​of this and the other clause in it. Discrepancies which the farther they were handled, embroiled themselves the more. His Majesty having burnt Scotch paper Declarations ‘by the hands of the common hangman,’ and almost cut off the poor Scotch Chancellor Loudon’s head, and being again resolute to chastise the rebel Scots with an Army, decides on summoning a Parliament for that end, there being no money attainable otherwise. To the great and glad astonishment of England; which, at one time, thought never to have seen another Parliament! Oliver Cromwell sat in this Parliament for Cambridge; recommended by Hampden, say some; not needing any recommendation in those Fen-countries, think others. Oliver’s Colleague was a Thomas Meautys, Esquire. This Parliament met, 13th April 1640: it was by no means prompt enough with supplies against the rebel Scots; the King dismissed it in a huff, 5th May; after a Session of three weeks: Historians call it the Short Parliament. His Majesty decides on raising money and an Army ‘by other methods’ ; to which end, Wentworth, now Earl Strafford and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, who had advised that course in the Council, did himself subscribe 20,000l. Archbishop Laud had long ago seen ‘a cloud rising’ against the Four surplices at Allhallowtide; and now it is covering the whole sky, in a most dismal and really thundery-looking manner.
His Majesty by ‘other methods,’ commission of array, benevolence, forced-loan, or how he could, got a kind of Army on foot, and set it marching out of the several Counties in the South towards the Scotch Border: but it was a most hopeless Army. The soldiers called the affair a Bishops’ War; they mutinied against their officers, shot some of their officers: in various Towns on their march, if the Clergyman were reputed Puritan, they went and gave him three cheers; if of Surplice tendency, they sometimes threw his furniture out of ​window. No fighting against poor Scotch Gospellers was to be hoped for from these men.—Meanwhile the Scots, not to be behindhand, had raised a good Army of their own; and decided on going into England with it, this time, ‘to present their grievances to the King’s Majesty.’ On the 20th of August 1640, they cross the Tweed at Coldstream; Montrose wading in the van of them all. They wore uniform of hodden grey, with blue caps; and each man had a moderate haversack of oatmeal on his back.
August 28th. The Scots force their way across the Tyne, at Newburn, some miles above Newcastle; the King’s Army making small fight, most of them no fight; hurrying from Newcastle, and all town and country quarters, towards York again, where his Majesty and Strafford were. The Bishops’ War was at an end. The Scots, striving to be gentle as doves in their behaviour, and publishing boundless brotherly Declarations to all the brethren that loved Christ’s Gospel and God’s Justice in England,—took possession of Newcastle next day; took possession gradually of all Northumberland and Durham,—and stayed there, in various towns and villages, about a year. The whole body of English Puritans looked upon them as their saviours: some months afterwards, Robert Baillie heard the London ballad-singers, on the streets, singing copiously with strong lungs, ‘Gramercy, good Master Scot,’ by way of burden.
His Majesty and Strafford, in a fine frenzy at this turn of affairs, found no refuge, except to summon a ‘Council of Peers,’ to enter upon a ‘Treaty’ with the Scots; and alas, at last, summon a New Parliament. Not to be helped in any way. Twelve chief Peers of the summoned ‘Council’ petitioned for a Parliament; the City of London petitioned for a Parliament, and would not lend money otherwise. A Parliament was appointed for the 3d of November next;—whereupon London cheerfully lent 200,000l..; and the treaty ​with the Scots at Ripon, 1st October 1640, 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, probably a more Puritanic man. The Members for Cambridge University are the same in both Parliaments.
* ↑ Nov. 1638; Baillie’s Letters (Edinburgh, 1841), i. 118-176.
* ↑ Rushworth, iii. 930.
* ↑ Ib. iii. 926-49; Baillie, i, 184-221; King’s Army ‘dismissed’ (after Pacification) 24th June (Rushworth, iii. 946).
* ↑ Browne Willis, pp. 229-30; Rushworth, iii, 1105.
* ↑ Rushworth, iii. 1241.
* ↑ Vicars’s Parliamentary Chronicle (Lond. 1644,) p. 20.
* ↑ Old Pamphlets.
* ↑ Rushworth, iii, 1236, etc.
* ↑ Baillie’s Letters.
* ↑ Rushworth, iii. 1282
* ↑ Willis; Rushworth, iv. 3. See Cooper’s Annals of Cambridge (London, 1845), iii. 303-4.