those who,
living in the south, consented to sojourn in the north; while the
dwellers in the north were to be lodged in the south!

In the country the disturbed scenes assumed even a more alarming
appearance than in London. They not only would not provide money, but
when money was offered by government, the men refused to serve; a
conscription was not then known: and it became a question, long debated
in the privy council, whether those who would not accept press-money
should not be tried by martial law. I preserve in the note a curious
piece of secret information.[298] The great novelty and symptom of the
times was the scattering of letters. Sealed letters, addressed to the
leading men of the country, were found hanging on bushes; anonymous
letters were dropped in shops and streets, which gave notice that the
day was fast approaching when "Such a work was to be wrought in England
as never was the like, which will be for our good." Addresses multiplied
"To all true-hearted Englishmen!" A groom detected in spreading such
seditious papers, and brought into the inexorable Star-chamber, was
fined three thousand pounds! The leniency of the punishment was rather
regretted by two bishops; if it was ever carried into execution, the
unhappy man must have remained a groom who never after crossed a horse!

There is one difficult duty of an historian, which is too often passed
over by the party-writer; it is to pause whenever he feels himself
warming with the passions of the multitude, or becoming the blind
apologist of arbitrary power. An historian must transform himself into
the characters which he is representing, and throw himself back into the
times which he is opening; possessing himself of their feelings and
tracing their actions, he may then at least hope to discover truths
which may equally interest the honourable men of all parties.

This reflection has occurred from the very difficulty into which I am
now brought. Shall we at once condemn the king for these arbitrary
measures? It is, however, very possible that they were never in his
contemplation! Involved in inextricable difficulties, according to his
feelings, he was betrayed by parliament; and he scorned to barter their
favour by that vulgar traffic of treachery--the immolation of the single
victim who had long attached his personal affections; a man at least as
much envied as hated! that hard lesson had not yet been inculcated on a
British sovereign, that his bos