348 their owne assent, who were ready, with a seeming face of authority of parliament, to restore the Stewarts, were greately d!strest; finding alsoe that the whole nation was bent against them, and would not beare their yoake; having therefore no refuge to save them from being torne in pieces by the people, and to deliver them from their ownc puppitts who had sold and betray'd them, they tonne! out some of the members of that glorious parliament which they had viulently dri ven from their seates with a thousand slanderous criminations and untrue. To these they counte1feited repentance, and that God had open'cl their eics to see into what a manifest hazard of ruine they had put the interest and people of God in these nations, so that it was almost irrecoverable, but if any hope were left, it was that God would signe it with his wonted favour, in those hands, out of which they had iniuriously taken it. Hereupon they open'd the house dom·es for them; and the speaker, with some few members, a& many as made a house, were too hasty to return into their seates, upon capitulation with those traytors, who had brought the commonwealth into such a sad confusion. But after they were melt, they immediately sent summons to all the members throughout all England, among whom the collonell was call'd up,' and m~JCh perplexed, for now he t hought his conscience, life, and fortunes againe engaged with men of mixed and different interests and principles; yet ip regard of the trust formerly repos'd in him, he return'cl into his place, infinitely dissatisfied that any condescension had bene made to the armies proposalls, whose neces1 By this passage, that error which has become general, and which is to be found iq RaPin, vol. ii. p. 605, is rendered palpable . He says they m.et in parliament to the number of forty-two; and again, p. 6o7, calls it a parliament of forty persons, but takes no notice of their sending summonses to all the members throughout England; but in the addition or suppression of this circumstance li es the total difl'crence between truth and fal sehood. Ludl.ow, who was one of them, says, vol. ii. p. 64.·5 . H That they u amounted to a hundred and sixty, who had sat in the house since the secl usion of "members in 1648 ."
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