found
the whole amount to fifteen thousand men.[*] The king, though his camp
had been gradually reenforced from all quarters, was sensible that he
had no army which could cope with so formidable a force, and he thought
it prudent, by slow marches, to retire to Derby, thence to Shrewsbury,
in order to countenance the levies which his friends were making in
those parts. At Wellington, a day's march from Shrewsbury, he made a
rendezvous of all his forces, and caused his military orders to be read
at the head of every regiment. That he might bind himself by reciprocal
ties, he solemnly made the following declaration before his whole army.

"I do promise, in the presence of Almighty God, and as I hope for his
blessing and protection, that I will, to the utmost of my power, defend
and maintain the true reformed Protestant religion established in the
church of England, and, by the grace of God, in the same will live and
die.

"I desire that the laws may ever be the measure of my government, and
that the liberty and property of the subject may be preserved by them
with the same care as my own just rights. And if it please God, by his
blessing on this army raised for my necessary defence, to preserve me
from the present rebellion, I do solemnly and faithfully promise, in the
sight of God, to maintain the just privileges and freedom of parliament,
and to govern, to the utmost of my power, by the known statutes and
customs of the kingdom; and particularly to observe inviolably the laws
to which I have given my consent this parliament. Meanwhile, if this
emergence, and the great necessity to which I am driven, beget any
violation of law, I hope it shall be imputed by God and man to the
authors of this war; not to me, who have so earnestly labored to
preserve the peace of the kingdom.

"When I willingly fail in these particulars, I shall expect no aid or
relief from man, nor any protection from above: but in this resolution
I hope for the cheerful assistance of all good men, and am confident of
the blessing of Heaven."[*]

* Whitlocke, p. 60., Clarendon, vol. iii. p. 15, 17.
Dugdale, p. 104.

Though the concurrence of the church undoubtedly increased the king's
adherents, it may safely be affirmed, that the high monarchical
doctrines, so much inculcated by the clergy, had never done him any real
service. The bulk of that generous train of nobility and gentry who now
attended the king in his distresses, breathed the s