Note 401 — Chapter X · (continued 2)

One of their most scandalous acts was the sale of the Earl of Craven's estate. He had been out of England during the war, and could not therefore be reckoned a delinquent. But evidence was offered that he had seen the king in Holland; and upon this charge, though he petitioned to be heard, and, as is said, indicted the informer for perjury, whereof he was convicted, they voted by 33 to 31 that his lands should be sold; Haslerig, the most savage zealot of the whole faction, being a teller for the ayes, Vane for the noes. Journals, 6th March 1651, and 22nd June 1652. State Trials, v. 323. On the 20th of July in the same year, it was referred to a committee to select thirty delinquents, whose estates should be sold for the use of the navy. Thus, long after the cessation of hostility, the royalists continued to stand in jeopardy, not only collectively but personally, from this arbitrary and vindictive faction. Nor were these qualities displayed against the royalists alone: one Josiah Primatt, who seems to have been connected with Lilburne, Wildman, and the levellers, having presented a petition complaining that Sir Arthur Haslerig had violently dispossessed him of some collieries, the house, after voting every part of the petition to be false, adjudged him to pay a fine of £3000 to the commonwealth, £2000 to Haslerig, and £2000 more to the commissioners for compositions. Journals, 15th Jan. 1651-2. There had been a project of erecting an university at Durham, in favour of which a committee reported (18th June 1651), and for which the chapter lands would have made a competent endowment. Haslerig, however, got most of them into his own hands; and thus frustrated, perhaps, a design of great importance to education and literature in this country. For had an university once been established, it is just possible, though not very likely, that the estates would not have reverted, on the king's restoration, to their former, but much less useful possessors.