256 NOTES TO THE LETTERS. crowd daylie increases. Six of us, Mr. Blair, Mr. Henderson, Mr. Borthick, Mr. Gil- lespie, Mr. Smith, and I preaches our tour about on Sunday and Thursday. In my last tour on the 3d verse of the 126th Psalm, ' The Lord hath done great things for us,' I spent much of an hour in ane historick narration, the best I could penn, of all that God had done for us fra the maid's commotion in the Cathedroll of Edinburgh to that present day : monie teares of compassion and joy did fall from the eyes of the English." Baillie's Letters, vol. i. p. 295. Y thanke you for the paper the Scots put into the Lords.-Many papers were put in for money on account of the 300,0001. granted in February to supply the wants of the army before it was disbanded. In the end of the following May 120,0001. of arrears were due. On the 19th June it was concluded that 100,0001. should be paid Midsummer 1642, and 200,0001. at Midsummer two years after. (May's Hist. of the Long Parliament.) P. 121. Letter om misdated in the year.-Letter cvi. 25 March, 1641, appears to be misdated and misplaced in the collection: it would naturally followLetter cxLI1I (19 March, 1641), in which it is said, " I hear the justices have sent up their answer why they would not take the Protestation-Sir Will. Croft governs all of them," and shouldbe dated 1642. The protestation mentioned in it was, no doubt, that taken by the House of Commons 3 May, 1641, which was considered by the parliament " a true test of every good subject," " a shibboleth to distinguish the Ephramites from the Gileadites, that whosoever was well affected in religion and to the good of the commonwealth would take, and on the other side who would not take it was not well affected " (Denzel Holies' Speech to the House of Lords) : and which was designed to be taken by all well-wishers to the Parlia- mentary cause. It appears from Letter cxvii., 21 May, 1641, to have been taken with great willingness at Brampton, Wigmore, and Lentwardine, where Sir Robert Harley's influence predominated, but it was not well received in the country; and, on the 20 Jan. 1641-2, a few days after the King's attempt to seize the five members, Serjeant Wilde brought up from his committee, for the signature of the Speaker, a copy of a letter to the sheriffs, requiring the justices of the peace and others, of 18 years of age and upwards, to take it, (See Appendix, p. 222.) The petition alluded to in this letter was probably the Hereford Petition, afterwards presented to the House, and well received by it in May, 1642. This letter acquaints us also with the views of Sir William Croft towards the Par- liament, and soon after the raising of the standard at Nottingham in August, although he had been for some time under the displeasure of the King, he joined his majesty's army, and was with the King, to his great admiration, at Edge Hill. P. 124. Sir William Croft. -Sir William Croft, of Croft Castle, in the county of Hereford, was son of Sir Herbert Croft, and born 1593: he represented Malmesbury in Parliament in 1625 -1627. He was a gentleman of the Privy Chamber to King Charles ; but, having evinced his dislike to the Duke of Buckingham, he was suspended from his office for three years, and on his murder banished from the court and dismissed. This treatment did not destroy his attachment to his royal master, in whose army he held the
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