n
either side any action of moment.

Besides the military operations between the principal armies which lay
in the centre of England, each county, each town, each family almost,
was divided within itself; and the most violent convulsions shook the
whole kingdom. Throughout the winter, continual efforts had every where
been made by each party to surmount its antagonist; and the English,
roused from the lethargy of peace, with eager though unskilful hands
employed against their fellow-citizens their long-neglected weapons. The
furious zeal for liberty and Presbyterian discipline, which had hitherto
run uncontrolled throughout the nation, now at last excited an equal
ardor for monarchy and Episcopacy, when the intention of abolishing
these ancient modes of government was openly avowed by the parliament.
Conventions for neutrality, though in several counties they had been
entered into and confirmed by the most solemn oaths, yet being voted
illegal by the two houses, were immediately broken;[*] and the fire of
discord was spread into every quarter. The altercation of discourse, the
controversies of the pen, but above all the declamations of the pulpit,
indisposed the minds of men towards each other, and propagated the
blind rage of party.[**] Fierce, however, and inflamed as were the
dispositions of the English, by a war both civil and religious, that
great destroyer of humanity, all the events of this period are less
distinguished by atrocious deeds either of treachery or cruelty, than
were ever any intestine discords which had so long a continuance; a
circumstance which will be found to reflect great praise on the national
character of that people now so unhappily roused to arms.

* Clarendon, vol. iii. p. 137, 139.

** Dugdale, p. 95.

In the north, Lord Fairfax commanded for the parliament, the earl of
Newcastle for the king. The latter nobleman began those associations
which were afterwards so much practised in other parts of the kingdom.
He united in a league for the king the counties of Northumberland,
Cumberland, Westmoreland, and the bishopric, and engaged some time after
other counties in the same association. Finding that Fairfax, assisted
by Hotham and the garrison of Hull, was making progress in the southern
parts of Yorkshire, he advanced with a body of four thousand men, and
took possession of York. At Tadcaster, he attacked the forces of the
parliament, and dislodged them: but his victory was no