large and influential following of devoted Royalists. Neither side would yield to the other. At length the King's impeachment of some prominent members of the Parliament, Pym, Hollis, Hampden, and others, caused the trained bands of the city to gather at Westminster, and brought in galloping from the country a large number of armed and mounted yeomen ready to defend the rights of Parliament.

SHAWE AND THE KING.

Do you wonder the King left the city, never to return, till his last progress thither to the scaffold? In 1642, the sword was drawn on both sides. On the one side were ranged the Royalists, or Cavaliers, on the other the Puritans, or Roundheads. Many of the Puritans had their heads cropped to the fashion of a cannon ball, but let us never forget that the two greatest of the Puritans-Milton and Cromwell, wore their hair in locks down to their shoulders. Charles made straight for York. Master Shawe, being in attendance on the Earl of Holland, engaged on military duty at Doncaster, was called to be present at the house of Lady Carlingford (the residence of the old Carmelite friars, near to the site of the present Mansion House), when the King came to dine with her ladyship. Our vicar overheard this conversation. King to Governor of Hull: "Cannot I starve Hull? I am told I can take their fresh water from them." Governor : "No. Every man in Hull can dig water at his own door." Does not even such a little bit of conversion let us inside some of the shrewd stratagems of the war-now about to break out in full force? The King took up his quarters in the old Palace of the Archbishops at York. Numerous and influential petitions were handed to him from the gentry and corporations, urging him to return to his Parliament. Our vicar seems to have been there on such an errand, perhaps in company with Lord Fairfax. Sir Francis Wortley, Bart., of Wortley, near Sheffield, was one of those who presented a petition of the Yorkshire gentry to the King, but probably not with a view to conciliation. He was enthusiastic for the King's side. After the King had raised his standard, Sir Francis Wortley raised a troop of horse, fortified his own house, and continued for some time a series of vexatious

depredations on the Parliament's garrisons in the district. Sir Ralph Stapleton, a Yorkshire Knight, and a pronounced Parliamentarian, was ordered to capture Sir Francis, giving occasion for a popular ballad :—

"I went down, quoth Sir Ralph Stapleton, with musquet, pike and drum, To fetch Sir Francis Wortley up, but truly he'd not come."

While at York, Master Shawe came into conversation with Lord Mowbray in Stonegate. His Lordship learning the name of his companion to be Shawe, said he had heard the Lord Commissioners speak not much good of one Shawe. Then he asked, "" Are you akin to one Shawe, of Rotherham ? for," said he, we hear at the Court so much ill of him." Said our Vicar, "I am the same man," and, of course, stood up for that man. Master John Shawe was already a man of mark both in the eyes of the Court party and the Parliament party At this stage he was greatly for moderation, negotiation, and peace. Alas! Charles would not hearken to his best friends. Proceeding to Nottingham, there on Castle Hill, still named "Standard Hill," he raised the Royal standard, which was scarcely set up before it was blown down, an ill omen to many. Civil war now broke out in grim earnest. The general forces of the Parliament were entrusted to the Earl of Essex. The northern forces were placed under the command of Lord Ferdinando Fairfax. The two Fairfaxes, father and son, belonged to a noble, liberty-devoted, and Royalist Yorkshire family.

FIRST ROYALIST ATTACK ON ROTHERHAM.

Hostilities in Yorkshire were first commenced on the part of the Royalists, bands of whom carried fire and sword hither and thither. The burning of the outhouses of Sir Chas. Rhodes, of Houghton, a prominent Nonconformist, roused the Southern district to adopt means of defence. The present narrator, once himself preached at Wakefield, when the attendance of the late Lord Houghton at chapel was expected. The excuse for mentioning this incident is asked, as it serves to illustrate the old and long connection of this noble family with Presbyterian Nonconformity and ancestry. On Rotherham Moor, the people of the district quickly assembled in arms. This was in September, 1642. According to our

Rotherham Vicar's accounts there must have been two Royalist attacks upon the town. The first is to be referred to 22nd January, 1643. Notice his own quaint description :-"On the two and twentieth of January (being the Lord's Day, the people being at church) the poore towne of Rotherham having neither walls, bulwarks, garrison, fortification, watch, &c., betwixt ten and eleven o'clock, about the middle of the sermon, suddenly came betwixt six and seven hundred cavaliers, with muskets, dragoons, &c., who had been billetted at Pontefract, and especially at Doncaster, and that, as after appeared, by the solicitation of some wicked malignants in the towne, who had informed them that there was no strength nor powder in the towne, but being by God's mercy discerned ere they got to the towne end, and with the rumour of it the people in the church were much affrighted (so as a corps lay a long time unburied), about 24 or 25 men got muskets and without order, rank, file, or almost any skill (save only that God taught their hands to war and their fingers to fight) these few boldly and courageously resisted all that great company a full hour and a half, so that the bullets flew exceedingly sharply and thick in the streets, and in the end (although scarce any powder left) slew and wounded many, and drove the rest away," So far, our Vicar.

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THE VICAR HIDES.

Following up another reference of his, we can imagine, when that sermon was stopped half-way, how the Vicar's man, Robert Gee, hurried up the pulpit steps and whispered to his master, Those Royalist cut-throats are crying out loudly against you, Master Shawe, so haste with me and I'll find you a safe retreat." Gee leads the way up the steeple steps, the Vicar following, stumbling now and again, for it is a dark, broken, stony staircase, and they reach the bell-room. Records the Vicar in his own words, "I with my man, Robert Gee, lay hid in the steeple of the church." It is not to be supposed the Vicar would go beyond the lofty range of stone steps, in the side of which would be found a capital hiding place. But Gee would be soon up to the lead parapet round the base of the steeple, where behind a battlement he could watch the