FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134  
135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   >>   >|  
, after the battle of Bradock. Rupert, in like manner, had prayers before every division at Marston Moor. To be sure, we cannot always vouch for the quality of these prayers, when the chaplain happened to be out of the way and the colonel was his substitute. "O Lord," petitioned stout Sir Jacob Astley, at Edgehill, "thou knowest how busy I must be this day; if I forget thee, do not thou forget me!"--after which, he rose up, crying, "March on, boys!" And as the Puritans had not the monopoly of prayer, so the Cavaliers did not monopolize plunder. Of course, when civil war is once begun, such laxity is mere matter of self-defence. If the Royalists unhorsed the Roundheads, the latter must horse themselves again, as best they could. If Goring "uncattled" the neighborhood of London, Major Medhope must be ordered to "uncattle" the neighborhood of Oxford. Very possibly individual animals were identified with the right side or the wrong side, to be spared or confiscated in consequence;--as in modern Kansas, during a similar condition of things, one might hear men talk of a pro-slavery colt, or an anti-slavery cow. And the precedent being established, each party could use the smallest excesses of the other side to palliate the greatest of its own. No use for the King to hang two of Rupert's men for stealing, when their commander could urge in extenuation the plunder of the house of Lady Lucas, and the indignities offered by the Roundheads to the Countess of Rivers. Why spare the churches as sanctuaries for the enemy, when rumor accused that enemy (right or wrong) of hunting cats in those same churches with hounds, or baptizing dogs and pigs in ridicule of the consecrated altars? Setting aside these charges as questionable, we cannot so easily dispose of the facts which rest on actual Puritan testimony. If, even after the Self-denying Ordinance, the "Perfect Occurrences" repeatedly report soldiers of the Puritan army, as cashiered for drunkenness, rudeness to women, pilfering, and defrauding innkeepers, it is inevitable to infer that in earlier and less stringent times they did the same undetected or unpunished. When Mrs. Hutchinson describes a portion of the soldiers on her own side as "licentious, ungovernable wretches,"--when Sir Samuel Luke, in his letters, depicts the glee with which his men plunder the pockets of the slain,--when poor John Wolstenholme writes to head-quarters that his own compatriots have seized all his hay
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134  
135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
plunder
 

soldiers

 

forget

 

neighborhood

 

churches

 
slavery
 
Puritan
 

Roundheads

 
prayers
 

Rupert


sanctuaries

 

writes

 
quarters
 

ridicule

 
compatriots
 

accused

 
hounds
 
baptizing
 

Wolstenholme

 

hunting


Countess

 

stealing

 

palliate

 

greatest

 

commander

 

indignities

 

offered

 

consecrated

 

seized

 

extenuation


Rivers

 
Setting
 

defrauding

 

pilfering

 

licentious

 
innkeepers
 

rudeness

 
wretches
 

Samuel

 
cashiered

ungovernable
 

drunkenness

 
inevitable
 
stringent
 

undetected

 

unpunished

 
Hutchinson
 

describes

 
portion
 

earlier