powers of the commissioners, and its purpose was pronounced an act of apostasy from the covenant, an impious attempt to erect the throne of the king in preference to the throne of Christ.  Their vehemence intimidated the Scottish parliament, and admonished the duke of Hamilton to proceed with caution.  That nobleman, whose imprisonment ended with the surrender of Pendennis, had waited on the king in Newcastle; a reconciliation followed; and he was now become the avowed leader of the royalists and moderate Presbyterians.  That he might not irritate the religious prejudices of his countrymen, he sought to mask his real object, the restoration of the monarch, under the pretence of suppressing heresy and schism; he professed the deepest veneration for the covenant, and the most implicit deference to the authority of the kirk; he listened with apparent respect to the remonstrances of the clerical commission, and openly solicited its members to aid the parliament with their wisdom, and to state their desires.  But these were mere words intended to lull suspicion.  By dint of numbers (for his party comprised two-thirds of the convention), he obtained the appointment of a committee of danger; this was followed by a vote to place the kingdom in a posture of defence; and the consequence of that vote was the immediate levy of reinforcements for the army.  But his opponents under the earl of Argyle threw every obstacle in his way.  They protested in parliament against the war; the commissioners of the kirk demanded that their objections should be previously removed; the women cursed the duke as he passed, and pelted him with stones from their windows; and the ministers from their pulpits denounced the curse of God on all who should take a share in the unholy enterprise.  Forty thousand men had been voted; but though force was frequently employed, and blood occasionally shed, the levy proceeded so slowly, that even in the month of July the grand army hardly exceeded one-fourth of that number.[1]

By the original plan devised at Hampton Court, it had been arranged that the entrance of the Scots into England should be the signal for a simultaneous rising of the royalists in every quarter of the kingdom.  But the former did not keep their time, and the zeal of the latter could not brook delay.[a] The first who proclaimed the king, was a parliamentary officer, Colonel Poyer, mayor of the town, and governor of the castle, of Pembroke.  He refused to resign his military appointment at the command of Fairfax, and, to justify

[Footnote 1:  Memoirs of the Hamiltons, 339, 347, 353.  Thurloe, i. 94.  Rushworth, vii. 1031, 48, 52, 67, 114, 132.  Two circumstantial and interesting letters from Baillie, ii. 280-297.  Whitelock, 305.  Turner, 52.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1648.  March 3.]