[Illustration:  JOHN HAMPDEN.]

A crisis had to come, and either one man must yield or a whole nation must submit to slavery.  The tax named “Ship Money,” originally levied in the eleventh century to provide ships for the Navy, was reintroduced by Charles in 1634 in a very burdensome form, and the crisis came which resulted in the Civil War, when Hampden, who resided in the neighbourhood of the Chiltern Hills, one of the five members of Parliament impeached by Charles, refused to pay the tax on the ground that it was illegal, not having been sanctioned by Parliament.  He lost his case, but the nation was aroused and determined to vindicate its power.  Hampden was killed in a small preliminary engagement in the early stages of the war.  The King was supported by the bulk of the nobility, proud of their ancient lineage and equipments of martial pomp, and by their tenants and friends; while the strength of the Parliamentary Army lay in the town population and the middle classes and independent yeomanry:  prerogative and despotic power on the one hand, and liberty and privilege on the other.  The Royal Standard was raised at Nottingham and the din of arms rang through the kingdom.  The fortress of Hull had been twice besieged and bravely defended, and the drawn Battle of Edgehill had been fought.  In the early part of 1644 both parties began the war in earnest.  A Scottish army had been raised, but its advance had been hindered by the Marquis of Newcastle, the King’s commander in the north.  In order to direct the attention of Newcastle elsewhere, Lord Fernando Fairfax and Sir Thomas his son, who had been commissioned by Parliament to raise forces, attacked Bellasis, the King’s Yorkshire Commander, and Governor of York, who was at Selby with 2,000 men, and defeated them with great loss, capturing Bellasis himself, many of his men, and all his ordnance.  Newcastle, dismayed by the news, hastened to York and entered the city, leaving the Scots free to join Fairfax at Netherby, their united forces numbering 16,000 foot and 4,000 horse.  These partially blockaded York, but Newcastle had a strong force and was an experienced commander, and with a bridge across the River Ouse, and a strong body of horse, he could operate on both sides of the stream; so Crawford, Lindsey, and Fairfax sent messengers to the Earl of Manchester, who was in Lincolnshire, inviting him to join them.  He brought with him 6,000 foot and 3,000 horse, of the last of which Oliver Cromwell was lieutenant-general.  Even then they could not invest the city completely; but Newcastle was beginning to lose men and horses, and a scarcity of provisions prevailed, so he wrote to the King that he must surrender unless the city could be relieved.  Charles then wrote to Prince Rupert, and said that to lose York would be equivalent to losing his crown, and ordered him to go to the relief of York forthwith.

[Illustration:  PRINCE RUPERT.]