ing
his friends from running upon ruin by executing those plans; and this
policy he had again been pursuing. Now, though Charles had by this
time been made aware of Sir Richard's long course of treachery, and
had privately informed Mordaunt of the extraordinary discovery, the
fact had been too little divulged to destroy the effects of Sir
Richard's counsels of wariness and delay, agreeable as these
naturally were to men fearing for their lives and estates and
remembering the failure of all previous insurrections. In short,
whatever was the cause, August 1, which had been the day fixed for a
simultaneous rising in many places, passed with far less
demonstration than had been promised. Mordaunt and a few of his
friends tried a rendezvous in Surrey, only to find it useless; in
several other places those who straggled together dispersed
themselves at once; in Gloucestershire, where Major-General Massey,
Lord Herbert, and their associates, did appear more openly, the
affair ended in the arrest or surrender of the leaders, Massey
escaping after having been taken. Only in Cheshire, where Sir George
Booth was the leader, did a considerable body rise in arms. Booth,
the Earl of Derby, Colonel Egerton, and a number of others, having
met at Warrington, issued a proclamation in which no mention was made
of the King, but it was merely declared that certain "Lords,
Gentlemen, and Citizens, Freeholders and Yeomen, in this once happy
nation," tired of the existing anarchy and tyranny, had resolved to
do what they could to recover liberty and free Parliamentary
Government. Hundreds and hundreds flocking to their standard, they
marched on Chester and took the city without opposition, though the
castle held out. The agitation then extended itself into Flintshire,
where the aged Sir Thomas Middleton distinguished himself by
brandishing his sword in the market-place of Wrexham and proclaiming
the King. Various castles and garrisons in the two counties fell in,
and Presbyterian Lancashire was also in commotion. Sir George Booth
found himself at the head of between 4000 and 5000 men, and it
remained to be seen whether the movement he had begun so boldly in
Cheshire, Flintshire, and Lancashire, might not spread itself
northwards, eastwards, and southwards, and so do the work of the
universal rising originally projected. It was hoped that his Majesty
himself, instead of landing in the south of England, as had been
proposed, would appear soon i