Note 273 — Chapter X

Parl. Hist. 218. The number who took the covenant in September 1643, appears by a list of the long parliament in the same work (vol. ii.) to be 236; but twelve of these are included in both lists, having gone afterwards into the king's quarters. The remainder, about 100, were either dead since the beginning of the troubles, or for some reason absented themselves from both assemblies. Possibly the list of those who took the covenant is not quite complete; nor do I think the king had much more than about sixty peers on his side. The parliament, however, could not have produced thirty. Lords' Journals, Jan. 22, 1644. Whitelock, p. 80, says that two hundred and eighty appeared in the House of Commons, Jan. 1644, besides one hundred absent in the parliament's service; but this cannot be quite exact.