words of Jeremiah to the rulers of Israel, As for me, behold I am in your hands, do with me as seemeth good and meet to you ; but know ye for certain, that if ye put me to death, ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon yourselves. But I hope better things of you, though I thus speak." The court allowed Mr. Love the benefit of council learned in the law, to argue some exceptions against the indictment; but after all that Mr. Hales could say for the prisoner, the court after six days hearing, on the 5th of July, pronounced sentence of death against him as a traitor. Great intercessions were made for the life of this reverend person, by the chief of the presbyterian party in London; his wife presented several moving petitions; and two were presented from himself, in one of which he acknowledges the justice of his sentence, according to the laws of the commonwealth; in the other he petitions, that if he may not be pardoned, his sentence may be changed into banishment; and that he might do something to deserve his life, he presented with his last petition a narration of all that he knew relating to the plot, which admits almost all that had been objected to him at his trial. But the affairs of the commonwealth were now at a crisis, and King Charles II. having entered England at the head of sixteen thousand Scots, it was thought necessay to strike some terror into the presbyterian party, by making an example of one of their favorite clergymen. Mr. Whitlocke says, that colonel Fortescue was sent to general Cromwell with a petition on behalf of Mr. Love, but that both the general and the rest of the officers declined meddling in the affair; bishop Kennet and Mr. Eachard say, the general sent word in a private letter to one of his confidents, that he was content that Mr. Love should be reprieved, and upon giving security for his future good behavior pardoned; but that the post-boy being stopped upon the road by some cavaliers belonging to the late king's army, they searched his packet, and finding this letter of reprieve for Mr. Love, they tore it with indignation, as thinking *Not only by his wife and friends, says Mr. Granger, but by several parishes in London and by fifty-four ministers. History of England, Memoirs, p. 474. vol. iii. .48.8vo. Ed. him not worthy to live, who had been such a firebrand at the treaty at Uxbridge. If this story be true, Mr. Love fell a sacrifice to the ungovernable rage of the cavaliers, as. Dr. Dorislaus and Mr. Ascham had done before. The mail arriving from Scotland, and no letter from Cromwell in behalf of Mr. Love, he was ordered to be executed upon Tower-hill, August 22, the very day the king entered Worcester at the head of his Scots army. Mr. Love mounted the scaffold with great intrepidity and resolution, and taking off his hat two several times to the people, made a long speech, wherein he declares the satisfaction of his mind in the cause for which he suffered; and then adds, "I am for a regulated, mixed monarchy, which I judge to be one of the best governments in the world. I opposed in my place the forces of the late king, because I am against screwing up monarchy into tyranny, as much as against those who would pull it down into anarchy. I was never for putting the king to death, whose person I did promise in my covenant to preserve; and I judge it an ill way of curing the body politic, by cutting off the political head. I die with my judgment against the engagement; I pray God forgive them that impose it, and them that take it, and preserve them that refuse it. Neither would I be looked upon as owning this present government; I die with my judgment against it. And lastly, 1 die cleaving to all those oaths, vows, covenants, and protestations, that were imposed by the two houses of parliament. I bless God I have not the least trouble on my spirit, but I die with as much quietness of mind as if I was going to lie down upon my bed to rest. I see men thirst after my blood, which will but hasten my happiness and their ruin; for though I am but of mean parentage, yet my blood is the blood of a christian, of a minister, of an innocent man, and (I speak it without vanity) of a martyr - I conclude with the speech of the apostle: I am now ready to be offered up, and the time of my departure is at hand, but I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness -and not for me only, but for all them that love the ap + Compl. Hist. p. 202. Eachard, p. 689. pearance of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whose blood I expect salvation, and remission of sins. And so the Lord bless you all." After this be prayed with an audible voice for himself and his fellow-sufferer, Mr. Gibbon, for the prosperity of England, for his covenanting brethren in Scotland, and for an happy union between the two nations, making no mention of the king. He then rose from his knees, and having taken leave of the ministers, and others who attended him, he laid his head upon the block, which the executioner took off at one blow, before he had attained the age of forty years. Mr Love was a zealous presbyterian, a popular preacher, and highly esteemed by his brethren. His funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Manton, and published under the title of The Saints triumph over death; but his memory has suffered very much by lord Clarendon's character, who represents him as guilty of as much "treason against the late king as the pulpit could contain; and delighting himself with the recital of it to the last, as dying with false courage, or (as he calls) in a raving fit of satis faction, for having pursued the ends of the sanctified obligation the covenant, without praying for the king, any further than he propagated the covenant.' To return to more public affairs. After the battle of Dunbar, general Cromwell, through the inclemency of the weather, and his great fatigues, was seized with an ague which hung upon him all the spring, but as the summer advanced he recovered, and in the month of July marched his army towards the king's at Sterling; but not thinking it advisable to attempt his camp, he transported part of his Mr. Love was born at Cardiff in Glamorganshire: became a servitor of New-Inn, Oxford, 1635, aged 17. In 1642 he proceeded master of arts. He was, at the beginning of his ministry, preacher to the garrison of Windsor, then under the command of colonel John Venn, and was called by the royalists VENN's principal fireman at Windsor. He was, afterwards, successively minister of St. Ann's near Aldersgate, and St. Lawrence-Jewry, in London. He was the author of sermons and some pieces of practical divinity, which gained him a considerable reputation. He was buried with great lamentation on the north side of the chancel of St. Lawrence-Jewry. Wood's Athen. Oxon, vol. ik p. 74, and Granger's History, vol. iii. p. 43, 8vo. Ed. * Vol. iii. p. 434. forces over the Frith into Fife, who upon their landing defeated the Scots, killing two thousand, and taking twelve hundred prisoners. After that, without waiting any longer on the king, he reduced Johnstown, and almost all the garrisons in the north. While the general was employed in these parts, the Scots committee, that directed the marches of their army, fearing the storm would quickly fall upon themselves, resolved to march their army into England, and try the loy alty of the English presbyterians; for this purpose colonel Massey was sent before into Lancashire, to prepare them for a revolt; and the king himself entered England by the way of Carlisle, August 6, at the head of sixteen thousand men; but when the committee of ministers that attended the army, observed that the king and his friends, upon their entering England, were for dropping the covenant, they sent an express to Massey, without the king's knowledge, (says lord Clarendon*) requiring him to publish a declaration, to assure the people of their resolution to prosecute the ends of the covenant. The king had no sooner notice of this, but he sent to Massey, forbidding him to publish the declaration, and to behave with equal civility towards all men who were forward to serve him; "but before this inhibition, (says his lordship) the matter had taken air in all places, and was spread over the whole kingdom, which made all men fly from their houses, or conceal themselves, who wished the king well." But his lordship is surely mistaken, for the king's chief hopes under Massey were from the presbyterians, who were so far from being displeased with his majesty's declaring for the covenant, that it gave them all the spirit he could wish for; but when it was known that the covenant was to be laid aside, Massey' measures were broken, many of the Scots deserted and returned home; and not one in ten of the English would hazard his life in the quarrel.† Mr. Baxter, who was a much better judge of the temper of the people than his lordship, says, "the English knew that the Scots coming into England was rather a flight than a march. They consid ered likewise, that the implacable cavaliers had made ne *Vol. iii. p. 400, 406. † Rapin, vol. ii. p. 585, folie. + Life, p. 68. preparation of the people's minds, by proposing any terms of a future reconciliation. That the prelatical divines were gone further from the presbyterians by Dr. Hammond's new way, than their predecessors; and that the cause they contended for being not concord but government, they had giv en the presbyterian clergy and people no hopes of finding any abatement of their former burthens; and it is hard to persuade men to venture their lives in order to bring themselves into a prison or banishment." However, these were the true reasons, says Mr. Baxter,* that no more came into the king at present; and had the presbyterians observed them at the restoration, they had made better terms for themselves than they did. The parliament at Westminster were quickly advised of the king's march, and by way of precaution expelled all delinquents out of the city; they raised the militia; they mustered the trained bands, to the number of fourteen thousand; and in a few weeks bad got together an army of near sixty thousand brave soldiers. Mr. Eachard represents the parliament as in a terrible panic, and projecting means to escape out of the land; whereas, in reality, the unhappy king was the pity of his friends, and the contempt of his enemies. General Cromwell sent an express to the parliament, to have a watchful eye over the presbyterians, who were in confederacy with the Scots, and told them, that the reason of his not interposing between the enemy and England was, because he was resolved to reduce Scotland effectually before winter. He desired the house to collect their forces together, and make the best stand they could till he could come up with the enemy, when he doubted not but to give a good account of them. At the same time he sent major-general Lambert with a strong body of horse to harrass the king's forces, whilst himself with the body of the army, hastened after, leaving lieutenant-general Monk with a sufficient force to secure his conquests, and reduce the rest of the country, which he quickly accomplished. Bishop Burnet says, there was an order and discipline among the English, and a face of gravity and piety that amazed all people; most of them were independents and baptists, but all gifted men, and preached Burnet, p. 80, * P. 689. |