nd thus the flame of civil war began.

However backward I was in engaging in the second year's expedition
against the Scots, I was as forward now, for I waited on the king
at York, where a gallant company of gentlemen as ever were seen in
England, engaged themselves to enter into his service; and here some
of us formed ourselves into troops for the guard of his person.

The king having been waited upon by the gentry of Yorkshire, and
having told them his resolution of erecting his royal standard, and
received from them hearty assurances of support, dismisses them, and
marches to Hull, where lay the train of artillery, and all the
arms and ammunition belonging to the northern army which had been
disbanded. But here the Parliament had been beforehand with his
Majesty, so that when he came to Hull, he found the gates shut, and
Sir John Hotham, the governor, upon the walls, though with a great
deal of seeming humility and protestations of loyalty to his person,
yet with a positive denial to admit any of the king's attendants into
the town. If his Majesty pleased to enter the town in person with any
reasonable number of his household, he would submit, but would not
be prevailed on to receive the king as he would be received, with his
forces, though those forces were then but very few.

The king was exceedingly provoked at this repulse, and indeed it was
a great surprise to us all, for certainly never prince began a war
against the whole strength of his kingdom under the circumstances that
he was in. He had not a garrison, or a company of soldiers in his
pay, not a stand of arms, or a barrel of powder, a musket, cannon
or mortar, not a ship of all the fleet, or money in his treasury to
procure them; whereas the Parliament had all his navy, and ordnance,
stores, magazines, arms, ammunition, and revenue in their keeping.
And this I take to be another defect of the king's counsel, and a sad
instance of the distraction of his affairs, that when he saw how all
things were going to wreck, as it was impossible but he should see it,
and 'tis plain he did see it, that he should not long enough before it
came to extremities secure the navy, magazines, and stores of war, in
the hands of his trusty servants, that would have been sure to have
preserved them for his use, at a time when he wanted them.

It cannot be supposed but the gentry of England, who generally
preserved their loyalty for their royal master, and at last heartily
sho