Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow [ Speaker Lenthall to Sir Thomas Fairfax. ] - The Clarke Papers. Selections from the Papers of William Clarke, vol. 1

Return to Title Page for The Clarke Papers. Selections from the Papers of William Clarke, vol. 1

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: History
Topic: The English Revolution

[ Speaker Lenthall to Sir Thomas Fairfax. ] - Sir William Clarke, The Clarke Papers. Selections from the Papers of William Clarke, vol. 1 [1901]

Edition used:

The Clarke Papers. Selections from the Papers of William Clarke, Secretary to the Council of the Army, 1647-1649, and to General Monck and the Commanders of the Army in Scotland, 1651-1660, ed. C.H. Firth (Camden Society, 1901). 4 vols.

Part of: The Clarke Papers. Selections from the Papers of William Clarke, 4 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


[Speaker Lenthall to Sir Thomas Fairfax.]

May it please your Excellence

Sir Arthur Haslerigg can informe you of my condition. I found the many inconveniencies I was like to have falne into, not in respect of my selfe, but in regard of the Kingdome’s Co . . of your Army. I am assured it will be strange to your Excellencie to heare of my being at Windsor where I intend to stay untill I find the Parliament in a better condition, if in case it be my fortune to sitt any more. I pray God blesse your Excellencie and all the rest there, that you may be, under God, the Saviour of the Parliament and people’s libertie, which I wish may be perfected by your selfe, which hath always been soe wished by

Your Excellencies humble servant

Wm. Lenthall.

[July 29?.]a

[a ]This letter was obviously written between July 26 and August 4, 1647. On the former day the House of Commons adjourned till July 30, and on July 30 it was informed that Lenthal had left London on the morning of the 29th. The engagement of Lenthal, Manchester, and other members of Parliament to live and die with the army was dated August 4. According to Holles this was done “upon pretence of a force and violence that had been offered to the Parliament, but in truth, by a conspiracy with the Army, designed and laid principally by Mr. St. John, the solicitor; as appears by a letter sent from Rushworth (Sir Thomas Fairfax’s Secretary) to the Speaker, with no name on it, but the latter part of it written with his own hand, advising him not to appear at the House on Friday morning, but to take counsel of Mr. Solicitor, who would tell him what was fit to be done, assuring him that the Army would all lie in the dirt, or protect them who were their friends. This, as I remember, was the purport of the letter yet remaining in one of the Houses: which no doubt came from Sir Thomas Fairfax, and Mr. Cromwell and the rest of those governors,” etc. (Holles, Memoirs, § 144). Ludlow says “we resolved to betake ourselves to the Army for protection, Sir Arthur Haselrig undertaking to persuade the Speaker to go thither, to which he consented with some difficulty” (Memoirs, i., 207). Lenthal’s reasons are given in his own declaration, printed at the time at Oxford and London, and reprinted in the Old Parliamentary History, xvi., 196. He complains of the violence offered to the Parliament and himself on Monday, June 26, and that there has been no effectual course taken to prevent the like for the future. “But on the contrary, it is generally voiced in the town, that there will be a far greater confluence of apprentices, reformadoes, and others on Friday at the Parliament doors; and particularly notice was given to me that after they had made the House vote what they pleased they would destroy me.” See also Walker’s History of Independency, ed. 1661, pt. i., p. 41.