but one David Hide, a reformado in the late army against the Scots, and now appointed to go upon some command into Ireland, began to bustle, and to say that he would cut the throats of those round-headed dogs* that bawled against bishops. Nor did this David Hide stop at threats, for he drew his sword, and called upon three or four others with him to second him; but his comrades refused, and he was soon disarmed by the citizens and carried before the House of Commons, who first committed him, and afterwards cashiered him. On the same stormy Monday, Colonel Lunsford, the recently dismissed lieutenant of the Tower, went through Westminster Hall, with no fewer than thirty or forty friends at his back. A fray ensued, the colonel drew his sword, and some hurt was done among the citizens and apprentices. Presently there came swarming down to Westminster some hundreds more of apprentices and others, with swords, staves, and other weapons. The Lords sent out the gentleman-usher, to bid them depart in the king's name. The people said that they were willing to be gone, but durst not, because Colonel Lunsford and other swordsmen in Westminster Hall were lying in wait for them with their swords drawn, and because some of them that were going home through Westminster Hall had been slashed and wounded by those soldiers. With great difficulty the lord mayor and sheriffs appeased this tumult, which caused the loss of some blood, and which was the prelude to the fiercer battles that soon followed between the Roundheads and Cavaliers. *Rushworth attributes the origin of the term Roundhead to this David Hide :-" Which passionate expression," says he, "as far as I could ever learn, was the first minting of that term or compellation of Roundheads, which afterwards grew so general." END OF VOL. XI. GLASGOW: W. G. BLACKIE AND CO., PRINTERS, VILLAFIELD. |