e immutable resolution, and shall be the undoubted
practice of him who accounts it his chiefest glory to be his majesty's
most loyal and obedient subject,

"DERBY."]

[Footnote 25: NOTE Y, p. 426. It had been a usual policy of the
Presbyterian ecclesiastics to settle a chaplain in the great families,
who acted as a spy upon his master, and gave them intelligence of
the most private transactions and discourses of the family; a signal
instance of priestly tyranny, and the subjection of the nobility! They
even obliged the servants to give intelligence against their masters.
Whitlocke, p. 502. The same author (p. 512) tells the following story:
The synod meeting at Perth, and citing the ministers and people who had
expressed a dislike of their heavenly government, the men being out
of the way, their wives resolved to answer for them. And on the day
of appearance, one hundred and twenty women, with good clubs in their
hands, came and besieged the church where the reverend ministers
sat. They sent one of their number to treat with the females; and he,
threatening excommunication, they basted him for his labor, kept him
prisoner, and sent a party of sixty, who routed the rest of the clergy,
bruised their bodies sorely, took all their baggage and twelve horses.
One of the ministers, after a mile's running, taking all creatures
for his foes, meeting with a soldier, fell on his knees, who, knowing
nothing of the matter, asked the blackcoat what he meant. The female
conquerors, having laid hold on the synod clerk, beat him till he
forswore his office. Thirteen ministers rallied about four miles from
the place, and voted that this village should never more have a synod
in it, but be accursed; and that though in the years 1638, and 1639, the
godly women were cried up for stoning the bishops, yet now the whole sex
should be esteemed wicked.]

[Footnote 26: NOTE Z, p. 468. About this time an accident had almost
robbed the protector of his life, and saved his enemies the trouble of
all their machinations. Having got six fine Friesland coach horses, as a
present from the count of Oldenburgh, he undertook for his amusement to
drive them about Hyde Park, his secretary, Thurloe, being in the coach.
The horses were startled and ran away. He was unable to command them
or keep the box. He fell upon the pole, was dragged upon the ground for
some time. A pistol, which he carried in his pocket, went off and by
that singular good fortune w