The first warlike demonstration was made before the town of York, before whose walls the king, arriving with an armed force, was refused admittance by Sir John Hotham, who held the place for the Parliament.  This was the signal for the outbreak of the war, and each party henceforth strained every nerve to arm themselves and to place their forces in the field.

The above is but a brief sketch of the circumstances which led the Cavaliers and Puritans of England to arm themselves for civil war.  Many details have been omitted, the object being not to teach the history of the time, but to show the general course of events which had led to so broad and strange a division between the people of England.  Even now, after an interval of two hundred years, men still discuss the subject with something like passion, and are as strong in their sympathies toward one side or the other as in the days when their ancestors took up arms for king or Commons.

It is with the story of the war which followed the conversation of Harry Furness and Herbert Rippinghall that we have to do, not with that of the political occurrences which preceded it.  As to these, at least, no doubts or differences of opinion can arise.  The incidents of the war, its victories and defeats, its changing fortunes, and its final triumph are matters beyond the domain of politics, or of opinion; and indeed when once the war began politics ceased to have much further sway.  The original questions were lost sight of, and men fought for king or Parliament just as soldiers nowadays fight for England or Prance, without in any concerning themselves with the original grounds of quarrel.

CHAPTER II.

For the king.

It was late that evening when Sir Henry Furness returned from Oxford; but Harry, anxious to hear the all-absorbing news of the day, had waited up for him.

“What news, father?” he said, as Sir Henry alighted at the door.

“Stirring news, Harry; but as dark as may be.  War appears to be now certain.  The king has made every concession, but the more he is ready to grant, the more those Puritan knaves at Westminster would force from him.  King, peers, bishops, Church, all is to go down before this knot of preachers; and it is well that the king has his nobles and gentry still at his back.  I have seen Lord Falkland, and he has given me a commission in the king’s name to raise a troop of horse.  The royal banner will be hoisted at Nottingham, and there he will appeal to all his loyal subjects for aid against those who seek to govern the nation.”

“And you think, sir, that it will really be war now?” Harry asked.