too much in a world of his own ideas to comprehend the significance of events that were passing around him. The twining of the Red and White Roses upon the ensanguined field of Bosworth was followed by the break-up of the feudal system, and the effacement of many of the old landmarks of English society; a new class of landowners had sprung into existence, eager for the acquirement of political freedom, and the king was unable or unwilling to recognise the changed condition of things. He inherited from his father inordinate notions of kingly power, and he resolutely shut his eyes to the fact that he had to deal with an entirely different state of public opinion. The power of the sovereign had waned, but that of the people had increased; Parliament, while bent upon abridging the ancient constitutional prerogative of the Crown, was equally resolute in the extension of its own. The King persisted in his determination to reign and govern by “divine right”—he refused to yield anything—and in the fierce struggle which he provoked he fell. Moderation was no longer thought of; the time for compromise was past; the seeds of strife were sown and nurtured both by King and Parliament, who, distrusting and wearied of each other, no longer cared for peace. At length the storm burst. At Manchester, on the 15th July, 1642—a month before the unfurling of the Royal standard at Nottingham—very nearly upon the spot where now stands the statue of Cromwell, the first shot was fired and the first blood shed in that great conflict which drenched the country in civil slaughter. When the first shot was fired which proclaimed to anxious England that the differences between the King and the Parliament were only to be settled by an appeal to arms, the two sons of Henry Bradshaw had attained to the fulness of manhood, Henry, the eldest, having then lately completed his forty-second year, while John was his junior only by two years.