order to arm his followers, to borrow the weapons of the train bands,
under promise of restoring them as soon as peace should be settled in
the kingdom.

The veneration for parliaments was at this time extreme throughout the
nation.[*] The custom of reviling those assemblies for corruption, as
it had no pretence, so was it unknown during all former ages. Few or no
instances of their encroaching ambition or selfish claims had hitherto
been observed. Men considered the house of commons in no other light
than as the representatives of the nation, whose interest was the same
with that of the public, who were the eternal guardians of law and
liberty, and whom no motive, but the necessary defence of the people,
could ever engage in an opposition to the crown. The torrent, therefore,
of general affection ran to the parliament. What is the great advantage
of popularity, the privilege of affixing epithets fell of course to that
party. The king's adherents were the wicked and the malignant: their
adversaries were the godly and the well-affected. And as the force of
the cities was more united than that of the country, and at once gave
shelter and protection to the parliamentary party, who could easily
suppress the royalists in their neighborhood, almost the whole kingdom,
at the commencement of the war, seemed to be in the hands of the
parliament.[**]

* Walker p 336.

** Warwick, p. 318.

What alone gave the king some compensation for all the advantages
possessed by his adversaries was, the nature and qualities of his
adherents. More bravery and activity were hoped for from the generous
spirit of the nobles and gentry, than from the base disposition of the
multitude. And as the men of estates, at their own expense, levied and
armed their tenants, besides an attachment to their masters, greater
force and courage were to be expected in these rustic troops, than in
the vicious and enervated populace of cities.

The neighboring states of Europe, being engaged in violent wars, little
interested themselves in these civil commotions; and this island enjoyed
the singular advantage (for such it surely was) of fighting out its own
quarrels without the interposition of foreigners. France, from policy,
had fomented the first disorders in Scotland, had sent over arms to
the Irish rebels, and continued to give countenance to the English
parliament; Spain, from bigotry, furnished the Irish with some supplies
of money and arms. T