Opening the text

Constitutional History of England, Henry VII to George II. Volume 2 of 3Hallam, Henry

History

Constitutional History of England, Henry VII to George II. Volume 2 of 3

Name: Constitutional History of England, Henry VII to George II. Volume 2 of 3
Author: Hallam, Henry

Hallam, Henry

Constitutional history -- Great Britain

_Miseries of the war._--It remained only, after the rupture of the
treaty at Uxbridge, to try once more the fortune of war. The people,
both in the king's and parliament's quarters, but especially the
former, heard with dismay that peace could not be attained. Many of
the perpetual skirmishes and captures of towns which made every man's
life and fortune precarious, have found no place in general history;
but may be traced in the journal of Whitelock, or in the Mercuries and
other fugitive sheets, great numbers of which are still extant. And it
will appear, I believe, from these that scarcely one county in England
was exempt, at one time or other of the war, from becoming the scene
of this unnatural contest. Compared indeed with the civil wars in
France in the preceding century, there had been fewer acts of
enormous cruelty, and less atrocious breaches of public faith. But
much blood had been wantonly shed, and articles of capitulation had
been very indifferently kept. "Either side," says Clarendon, "having
somewhat to object to the other, the requisite honesty and justice of
observing conditions was mutually, as it were by agreement, for a long
time violated."[287] The royalist army, especially the cavalry,
commanded by men either wholly unprincipled, or at least regardless of
the people, and deeming them ill affected, the princes Rupert and
Maurice, Goring and Wilmot, lived without restraint of law or military
discipline, and committed every excess even in friendly quarters.[288]
An ostentatious dissoluteness became characteristic of the cavalier,
as a formal austerity was of the puritan; one spoiling his neighbour
in the name of God, the other of the king. The parliament's troops
were not quite free from these military vices, but displayed them in a
much less scandalous degree, owing to their more religious habits and
the influence of their presbyterian chaplains, to the better example
of their commanders, and to the comparative, though not absolute,
punctuality of their pay.[289] But this pay was raised through
unheard-of assessments, especially an excise on liquors, a new name in
England, and through the sequestration of the estates of all the
king's adherents; resources of which he also had availed himself,
partly by the rights of war, partly by the grant of his Oxford
parliament.[290]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Constitutional History of England, Henry VII to George II. Volume 2 of 3Hallam, Henry

History

Constitutional History of England, Henry VII to George II. Volume 2 of 3

Hallam, Henry

Constitutional history -- Great Britain

_Miseries of the war._--It remained only, after the rupture of the
treaty at Uxbridge, to try once more the fortune of war. The people,
both in the king's and parliament's quarters, but especially the
former, heard with dismay that peace could not be attained. Many of
the perpetual skirmishes and captures of towns which made every man's
life and fortune precarious, have found no place in general history;
but may be traced in the journal of Whitelock, or in the Mercuries and
other fugitive sheets, great numbers of which are still extant. And it
will appear, I believe, from these that scarcely one county in England
was exempt, at one time or other of the war, from becoming the scene
of this unnatural contest. Compared indeed with the civil wars in
France in the preceding century, there had been fewer acts of
enormous cruelty, and less atrocious breaches of public faith. But
much blood had been wantonly shed, and articles of capitulation had
been very indifferently kept. "Either side," says Clarendon, "having
somewhat to object to the other, the requisite honesty and justice of
observing conditions was mutually, as it were by agreement, for a long
time violated."[287] The royalist army, especially the cavalry,
commanded by men either wholly unprincipled, or at least regardless of
the people, and deeming them ill affected, the princes Rupert and
Maurice, Goring and Wilmot, lived without restraint of law or military
discipline, and committed every excess even in friendly quarters.[288]
An ostentatious dissoluteness became characteristic of the cavalier,
as a formal austerity was of the puritan; one spoiling his neighbour
in the name of God, the other of the king. The parliament's troops
were not quite free from these military vices, but displayed them in a
much less scandalous degree, owing to their more religious habits and
the influence of their presbyterian chaplains, to the better example
of their commanders, and to the comparative, though not absolute,
punctuality of their pay.[289] But this pay was raised through
unheard-of assessments, especially an excise on liquors, a new name in
England, and through the sequestration of the estates of all the
king's adherents; resources of which he also had availed himself,
partly by the rights of war, partly by the grant of his Oxford
parliament.[290]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Constitutional History of England, Henry VII to George II. Volume 2 of 3

Constitutional History of England, Henry VII to George II. Volume 2 of 3

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