of the rights of the Church, prior circumstances in England made it for the English principally a war on behalf of civil liberty. Through a victory achieved for the Church, the Scotch intended to establish the political well-being of their country; through a victory obtained for the Parliament, the English meant to promote the spiritual interests of the Church. The relation between the two aspects of the conflict, in each case, came to be regulated accordingly. [Illustration] CHAPTER XI. To employ an apt but homely figure used by Mrs. Hutchinson, the smoke ascended from the tops of the chimneys before the flame broke out. As early as April, the King appeared at the gates of Hull, where he was denied entrance by Sir John Hotham. In the middle of June, the Commission of Array at Leicester came into collision with the Parliamentary militia. In August, the brave Lord Brooke set out from Warwick Castle with three hundred musketeers and two hundred horse, gathering round him recruits to the number of three thousand; the country sending "six loads of harrows to keep off horses, and a cart-load of bread and cheese, and great store of beer."[306] Reluctant to shed blood, the Puritan commander charged his soldiers, for the kingdom's sake, not to fire a single pistol except in self-defence. Happily, there arose no occasion for firing at all, as the Royalists, under the Earl of Northampton, threw down their arms, and ran away. The King, in revenge of Brooke's conduct, bestowed that nobleman's castle as an escheat on the Lord of Compton-Winyates, after which the patriot, in defiance of this injustice and insult, planted ordnance at the gate and keep of his feudal fortress, and on the top of Cæsar's tower. Lord Compton, forcibly claiming the royal grant, assailed the stronghold left under the charge of Sir Edward Peto, and planted cannon on the church to bombard the castle. Dislodged by shots, the besieger endeavoured to starve out the garrison; but Sir Edward, with grim Puritan resolution, hoisted a flag displaying the figures of a Bible and a winding sheet, which presented very significant symbols of the objects and spirit of the rising war.[307] [Sidenote: _Outbreak of War._]