Note 403 — Chapter III

Walker, who relates what he himself witnessed, says, that, about 1649, the army was commanded by ‘colonels and superior officers, who lord it in their gilt coaches, rich apparel, costly feastings; though some of them led dray-horses, wore leather-pelts, and were never able to name their own fathers or mothers.’ Hist. of Independ. part ii. p. 244. The Mercurius Rusticus, 1647, says, ‘Chelmsford was governed by a tinker, two cobblers, two tailors, two pedlars.’ Southey's Commonplace Book, third series, 1850, p. 430. And, at p. 434, another work, in 1647, makes a similar statement in regard to Cambridge; while Lord Holles assures us, that ‘most of the colonels and officers (were) mean tradesmen, brewers, taylors, goldsmiths, shoe-makers, and the like.’ Holles's Memoirs, p. 149. When Whitelocke was in Sweden in 1653, the prætor of one of the towns abused the parliament, saying, ‘that they killed their king, and were a company of taylors and cobblers.’ Whitelocke's Swedish Embassy, vol. i. p. 205. See also note in Carwithen's Hist. of the Church of England, vol. ii. p. 156.