b] of
its having been cut to commemorate the slaughter of a chieftain's horse at
the battle of Towton, in 1461, the chieftain preferring to share the
perils of the fight with his followers.

II.

The reign of King Charles I. showed a widening of the difference between
the ecclesiastic and puritan elements of the English community--elements
which were the centres of the subsequently enlarged sections, royalist and
parliamentarian. In the later dissentions between the King and the Commons
it was early apparent how widespread had been the alienation of the
people from the King's cause--an alienation heightened, as Green in his
"Short History" tells us, by a fear that the spirit of Roman Catholicism,
so victorious on the continent, should once more become dominant in
England. How great was the tension may be known from the fact of the
contemplated emigration to the American colonies of such leaders as Lord
Saye and Sele, Lord Warwick, Lord Brooke, and Sir John Hampden and Oliver
Cromwell. When the rupture at last came, the Parliament was found to have
secured the larger arsenals, and also to have forces at its disposal in
the trained bands of London and in the militia, which it was enabled
rapidly to enrol. Though the unfurling of the Royal Standard near
Nottingham failed to secure many adherents to the King's cause, Essex
hesitated to attack the royalists when they might have been easily
dispersed, thinking no doubt to overawe the King by mere show of force.
Yet when Charles began recruiting in the neighbourhood of Shrewsbury, he
was soon able to gather an army, and on October 12th, 1642, he commenced
his march upon London. The astute and carefully moderate policy of the
Commons was to rescue the King from his surroundings, and to destroy the
enemies, especially the foreign enemies, of the State, about the King's
person. The sanctity of the King's person was yet a prominent factor--the
belief in divinity of Kingship, notwithstanding all the misrule there had
been, was yet alive in the hearts of the people. Therefore when the King
had gathered his forces together and began his Southward march, Lord Essex
with his army was commissioned "to march against his Majesties Army and
fight with them, and to rescue the persons of the King, Prince and Duke of
York." The Earl of Essex, with the Parliamentarian forces, was at that
time in Worcestershire, endeavouring to prevent the recruiting of the
King's troops; and though the Earl