urks: for these great men,
and several other very eminent divines, were kept close
prisoners in a ship on the Thames, under the hatches, almost
killed with stench, hunger, and watching; and treated by the
senseless mariners with more insolence than if they had been the
vilest slaves, or had been confined there for some infamous
robbery or murder. Nay, one Rigby, a scoundrel of the very dregs
of the parliament rebels, did at that time expose these venerable
persons to sale, and _would actually have sold them for slaves,
if any one would have bought them_."
In a note, it is added that Rigby moved twice in the Long Parliament,
"That those lords and gentlemen who were prisoners, should be
sold as slaves to Argiere, or sent to the new plantations in the
West Indies, because he had contracted with two merchants for
that purpose."
Col. Rigby, so justly denounced by Barwick, sat in the Long Parliament
for the borough of Wigan, and in the Parliarment of 1658-9 represented
Lancashire. He was a native of Preston, was bred to the law, and held a
colonel's rank in the parliamentary army. He was one of the committee of
sequestrators for Lancashire, served at the siege of Latham House, and
in 1649 was created Baron of the Exchequer, but was superseded by
Cromwell.
Calamy, the historian and chaplain of the Nonconformists, treated
Walker's statement quoted by MR. SANSOM as a fiction, and advised him to
expunge the passage. See his _Church and Dissenters compared as to
Persecution_, 1719, pp. 40, 41.
A.B.R.
_North Side of Churchyards_ (Vol. ii., pp. 55. 189).--One of your
writers has recently endeavoured to explain the popular dislike to
burial on the north side of the church, by reference to the place of the
churchyard cross, the sunniness, and the greater resort of the people to
the south. {254} These are not only meagre reasons, but they are
incorrect.
The doctrine of regions was coeval with the death of Our Lord. The east
was the realm of the oracles; the especial Throne of God. The west was
the domain of the people; the Galilee of all nations was there. The
south, the land of the mid-day, was sacred to things heavenly and
divine. The north was the devoted region of Satan and his hosts; the
lair of demons, and their haunt. In some of our ancient churches, over
against the font, and in the northern walls, there was a devil's door.
It was thrown open at every bapt
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