--On that day, the King, who had meanwhile left York, and come about a hundred miles farther south, into the very heart of England, ... made a backward movement as far as the town of Nottingham, where preparations had been made for the great scene that was to follow. ... This consisted in bringing out the royal standard and setting it up in due form. It was about six o'clock in the evening when it was done. ... A herald read a proclamation, declaring the cause why the standard had been set up, and summoning all the lieges to assist his Majesty. Those who were present cheered and threw up their hats, and, with a beating of drums and a sounding of trumpets, the ceremony ended. ... From that evening of the 22d of August, 1642, the Civil War had begun." _D. Masson, Life of John Milton, book 2, chapter 8 (volume 2)._ ALSO IN: _John Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Pym; Hampden._ _S. R. Gardiner, History of England, 1603-1642, chapters 104-105 (volume 10)._ ENGLAND: A. D. 1642 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER). The nation choosing sides. "In wealth, in numbers, and in cohesion the Parliament was stronger than the king. To him there had rallied most of the greater nobles, many of the lesser gentry, some proportion of the richer citizens, the townsmen of the west, and the rural population generally of the west and north of England. For the Parliament stood a strong section of the peers and greater gentry, the great bulk of the lesser gentry, the townsmen of the richer parts of England, the whole eastern and home counties, and lastly, the city of London. But as the Civil War did not sharply divide classes, so neither did it geographically bisect England. Roughly speaking, aristocracy and peasantry, the Church, universities, the world of culture, fashion, and pleasure were loyal: the gentry, the yeomanry, trade, commerce, morality, and law inclined to the Parliament. Broadly divided, the north and west went for the king; the south and east for the Houses; but the lines of demarcation were never exact: cities, castles, and manor-houses long held out in an enemy's county. There is only one permanent limitation. Draw a line from the Wash to the Solent. East of that line the country never yielded to the king; from first to last it never failed the Parliament. Within it are enclosed Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Bedford, Bucks, Herts, Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, Sussex. This was the wealthiest, the most populous, and the most advanced portion of England. With Gloucester, Reading, Bristol, Leicester, and Northampton, it formed the natural home of Puritanism." _F. Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 4._ ENGLAND: A. D. 1642 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER). Edgehill--the opening battle of the war. The Eastern Association.