lous, yet we cannot but presume that others did actually take place. If otherwise, we must impute falsehood to a multitude of individuals whose testimony, as there cited, we cannot in justice set aside. They, of course, referred such cures to the miraculous intervention of the departed; we, in these later days, attribute such result to a more healthy nervous influence diffused throughout the system by the excitement of belief and hope. We have previously remarked the intimate friendship and constant intercourse maintained between De Montfort and the learned bishop Grosseteste. In addition to this favorable trait in the earl's mental and moral character, it is gratifying to have further ascertained that he was likewise connected with another distinguished scholar of the age, the celebrated Adam de Marisco;633 whom we find to have been a frequent inmate of the earl's family, and of whom, as well as Bp. Grosseteste, their extraordinary contemporary Roger Bacon has declared that they were the two most learned men in the world, and that they excelled all the rest of mankind both in divine and human knowledge.634 With Marisco, the earl sustained a friendly correspondence for a long period: for among the Cotton manuscripts in the British Museum is still extant a copy of letters addressed to Leicester by De Marisco. The volume is a small quarto 632 A singular but instructive instance fell under the observation of sir Humphrey Davy, when early in life assisting Dr. Beddoes in his experiments on the inhalation of nitrous oxide. Dr. B. having inferred that the oxide must be a specific for palsy, a patient was selected for trial, and placed under the care of Davy. Previously to administering the gas, Davy inserted a small thermometer under the tongue of the patient, to ascertain the temperature. The paralytic man, wholly ignorant of the process to which he was to submit, but deeply impressed by Dr. Beddoes with the certainty of its success, no sooner felt the thermometer between his teeth than he concluded the talisman was in operation, and in a burst of enthusiasm declared that he already experienced the effects of its benign influence throughout his whole body. The opportunity was too tempting to be lost. Davy did nothing more; but desired his patient to return on the following day. The same ceremony was repeated, the same result followed, and at the end of a fortnight he was dismissed cured; no remedy of any kind except the thermometer having been used.—Paris's Life of Davy, p. 51. 633 Adam de Marisco, or Adam of the Marsh, was native of Somersetshire. He was doctor of divinity, and archdeacon of Oxford in 1258; and was selected by Bp. Grosteste as his companion in a joint perusal and comparison of the Scriptures. He ultimately became a Franciscan friar in Worcester, and enriched the library there with many excellent manuscripts.-Tanner's Notitia, p. 9: see also Fuller's Worthies. 634 Anglia Sacra, vol. ii. page 344. on vellum, so scorched by a fire which some years ago occurred in Montague House, that it is at present almost dangerous to open its warped and brittle leaves. The Camden Society have, we believe, promised to publish the volume, but hitherto nothing further has appeared. The fact that De Montfort had attained to so distinguished an advancement in literature, at a period when many of his equals in rank could scarcely effect the signature of their names, may well concur to deepen our conviction that the public conduct of this great man proceeded mainly from a comprehensive estimate of the political necessities of the time; hereby enabling him to pursue a digested plan of reform, with a more extended foresight than has usually been allotted to him. The career of Symon de Montfort has terminated. The once adjoining fabric that enshrined his venerated remains has been rudely overturned, and the tomb of the departed has commingled with its ruins. Thus have we been deprived the privilege of gazing upon the sculptured lineaments of his countenance, as depicted in the mail-clad effigy upon his grave; while, as we believe, no authentic portrait remains to acquaint us with his aspect. But his undying fame endures beyond these perishable memorials. For the unflinching spirit with which he continued his prolonged agitation, and his abandonment of personal advantages for the general welfare of the people, are sufficient to pourtray the purport of his struggle, and to endear him to that class of the community whose present ameliorated condition is mainly attributable to that enlargement of the basis of our parliamentary representation, which, if not originating with him in theory, was yet by him most fully and pratically carried out. Throughout his career this fact is evident : that he struggled to confine the executive power within the limits of the law; and thus oblige the king in all his acts of state to proceed only with the concurrence of his lieges, in numbers suited to the occasion. CHAPTER XVII. MILITARY OCCURRENCES AT EVESHAM DURING THE A GOVERNMENT by "commonwealth," as to the precise period of its commencement, may be regarded as originating with "that state of things, in which the legislature assumes to itself the right of fixing on the persons who shall fill situations of great public trust."635 This event in English history was rendered unavoidable by the conduct of the executive department, in the person of Charles the First. That monarch, persisting in an imposition of taxes without parliamentary consent, at length demanded on the 2d of January 1642, that five individuals, members of the house of commons and resolute opponents of his unconstitutional impositions, should unconditionally be delivered into his hands: and this he peremptorily claimed, without any previous application, upon which the question might have become the subject of debate. Though the power of parliament had previously been invaded, yet by this open violation of its privilege, its independence was so far at an end, that until restored to its rightful control over the finances of the state, as well as indemnified from all future liability to capricious interference from the crown-it became impossible that legislation, in conjunction with the executive branch, could any longer proceed. The sovereign, however-cradled amid those dazzling conceptions of the semi-deity of the kingly state, with which the flattery of courtiers had, in the instance of himself and father, inflated the natural vanity of the human mind-obstinately evaded for a while 635 Godwin's History of the Commonwealth, vol. i. any effectual adjustment of that serious misunderstanding, which his pertinacious adherence to the principles of absolute monarchy had caused. At length, by overt deed, he, on the 25th of August 1642, rendered finally irreparable that fearful breach which his conduct had occasioned between the executive and legislative departments of the state. Upon that day-after the issue of a proclamation which forbad his subjects to yield obedience to the two houses of parliament and required all men who could bear arms to repair to him-the king unfurled at Nottingham the standard of civil war. Ominous were the attendant circumstances; and touchingly does lord Clarendon thus conclude the fifth book of his important History.-"The standard was erected about six of the clock in the evening of a very stormy and tempestuous day. The king himself, with a small train, rode to the top of the castle-hill; Varney, the knight marshall, who was standard bearer, carrying the standard, which was then erected in that place with little other ceremony than the sound of drums and trumpets. Melancholy men observed many ill presages about that time. There was not one regiment of foot yet levied and brought thither; so that the trained-bands, which the sheriff had drawn together, was all the strength the king had for his person and the guard of the standard. There appeared no conflux of men in obedience to the proclamation; the arms and ammunition were not yet come from York, and a general sadness covered the whole town; and the king himself appeared more melancholy than he used to be. The standard itself was blown down the same night it had been set up, by a very strong and unruly wind; and could not be fixed again in a day or two, till the tempest was allayed. This was the melancholy state of the king's affairs, when the standard was set up.' "636 During this mournful era in the modern history of our country, when the rights of the subject could no longer be secured against the despotic policy of the crown, otherwise than by recourse to arms in their defence,the town of Evesham stands forth in some degree conspicuous among the annals of the western war. The peculiar situation of the town, almost insulated by the river, together with its position on the road from Oxford to Worcester,-placed thus 636 Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, ed. 8vo. Oxon, 1839. |