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.
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