_Ejection of Scandalous and Malignant Ministers_.--A somewhat wholesale process, described in such terms by the winning side, had been going on, everywhere within the sway of Parliament, for several months. It was part, indeed, of a more general process, for the sequestration to the use of Parliament of the estates of notorious Delinquents of all kinds, which had been the subject of various Parliamentary ordinances. [Footnote: Commons Journals from March 1612-3 onwards. For sequence of proceedings and dates, see Index to Journals, Vol III. _sub cocc._ "Delinquents." See also the main sequestrating ordinances (March 31 and Aug. 19, 1643) in Scobell's collection.] By these ordinances a machinery for the work of sequestration had been established, consisting of a central committee in London, and of committees in all the accessible counties. The special application of this machinery to clerical delinquents had come about gradually. From the very beginning of the Parliament (Nov. 1640) there had been a grand Committee of the Commons, of which Mr. White, member for Southwark, was chairman, for inquiring into the scandalous immoralities of the clergy, and an acting Sub- committee, of which Mr. White also was chairman, for considering how scandalous ministers might be removed, and real preaching ministers put in their places. By the action of these committees month after month-- receiving and duly investigating complaints brought against clergymen, either of scandalous lives or of notoriously Laudian opinions and practices--a very large number of clergymen had been placed on the black books, and some actually ejected, before the commencement of the war. But, after the war began, sharper action became necessary. For now the Parliament had to provide for what were called "the plundered ministers" --_i.e._ for those Puritan ministers who, driven from their parsonages in various parts of the country by the King's soldiers, had to flock into London, with their families, for refuge and subsistence. A special Committee of the Commons had been appointed (Dec. 1642) to devise ways and means for the relief of these "godly and well-affected ministers;" and, as was natural, the proceedings of this Committee had become inter- wound with those of the Committee for the ejection of scandalous ministers--Mr. White at the head of the whole agency. And so, in the Commons, we hear ultimately of such determinations as these respecting "scandalous ministers:"--July 3,1643: "Ordinance to be prepared to enable the Committees (for sequestration) in the several counties to sequester their livings;"--July 27: "the Committee for plundered Ministers to consider of informations against them and to put them to the proof;"-- Sept. 6: "Deputy Lieutenants and Committees in the counties empowered to examine witnesses against them." The result was the beginning of that "great and general purgation of the clergy in the Parliament's quarters"