should be sent to York, and there told, and £100,000. thereof paid at Northallerton within five days after it is told; and when the money comes to Topcliffe, the Scots should give hostages that they should quit all their quarters, possessions and garrisons on the south side Tyne, Newcastle, Tinmouth, (including the castle at Stockton) with all the arms, &c. within ten days, and upon performance the hostages to be redelivered."* Here are strong suspicions, and not without reason, of the sincere intentions of the Scots; for we do not find all these conditions immediately complied with. The oppression of this country, at this time, was indeed severe. In the month of August preceding, a remonstrance was sent to parliament from Cleveland and other northern parts, of the insupportable burthen of the Scotish and English forces upon them:†-which ever party prevailed the honest and industrious native of the county suffered"plectuntur Achivi." Soon after this, a petition was sent to parliament from many of the county of Durham for the removal of the Scot's army, and an offer of a considerable sum of money to be paid to them; and, that they might send knights and burgesses to parliament. The house answered, that they were sensible of the country's sufferings, and had taken course to remove the armies; and that the latter part of their petition should be referred to a committee.‡ It would appear as if the Scot's garrison at Stockton were very unwilling to let go their hold;§ as it was ne Rushworth, vol. 6. p. 389. + Whitelock's Memoirs. + Whitelock. § We shall not much wonder at this, when we recollect the oat-meal the Scots brought with them at the battle of Newburn, and the de cessary for the houses of parliament to make specific resolutions on this subject, and those at some distance of time after the original resolutions. "Die Veneris 26° Feb. 1646-7, RESOLVED, &c. that Stockton castle be made untenable, and the garrison disgarrisoned. "Die Martis 13° Julii 1647, RESOLVED that the house doth concur with the Lords, that the works about Stockton castle made sithence these troubles be slighted and dismantled, and the garrison disgarrisoned."+ Thus fell the long remembered honours of Stockton castle; and these resolutions of the House of Commons were the last memorials of its power. This I cannot dismiss the contemplation of these unhappy times, without deploring the miseries of civil war. is no place to discuss the political causes from which it arose, the ambition which urged it on, or the fanaticism which tended to bring it to a close: but the sum of individual suffering must ever be lamented. I must sympathize with those who were driven from every domestic comfort, and forced to seek precarious subsistence in a foreign land, to submit to grievous oppression, to suffer imprisonment, and perhaps death, in their own. While we look back upon this scene, we must behold sire they expressed of repeating their visit to the same quarter. "When the war broke out in England [the second time] the Scots had a great mind to go into it. The decayed nobility, the military men, and the ministers were violently set on it. They saw what good quarters they had in the north of England."-Burnet, p. 35. vol. 1. folio. + Rushworth. Journals of the House of Commons. it with a sigh, and ardently wish that it were the only prospect of this nature which presented itself to our view. Yet, alas! this age has seen a repetition of these calamities, with many accumulated sorrows. But if we afforded an unhappy example to a neighbouring nation; how has that nation surpassed us in the system of cruelty! I dwell not on the prospect; may the author of peace soon bring order out of confusion! The lesson, however, is an important one to the world. When wellsettled constitutions are attacked either by the visionary or the profligate, when the bad passions of man are agitated, and their prejudices gaining an influence above their understandings, a small interval will be found to exist between the first deliberation and the execution of their schemes. Every step in that case will be rash, and the event fatal. That every state from the alterations of time, the changes of manners, and new discoveries and improvements, may require new arrangements, no man of rational judgment will deny. But where party feeling gives the impulse, where the ambition of some and the interest of others are united, and the public good totally disregarded, however that may be held forth as the pretended motive, the attempt is dangerous, and the end destructive. Whatever might have been the case with France, or whatever uncorrected evil might have lain at the root of government in the days of the unhappy Charles, our admirable establishment in church and state, as they are now happily arranged, affords every reasonable cause of satisfaction. Every man may sit under his own vine and his own fig-tree, and every man, unmolested, may drink of the pure fountain of religious truth; and though the voice of those who envy this happy state may be heard sometimes "hurtling in the air;" let it be our comfort, not only to acquiesce in, but to be thankful for, our well-ordered constitution, and to repeat the oftrepeated patriotic wish ESTO PERPETUA !* Since the first edition of this work [1796] all the circumstances of the French revolution, and the wonderful variety of important events which sprang from it, have passed away before our eyes. The various scenes of this great plan of providence have succeeded each other with infinite rapidity, but in wonderful order; and have not failed to make a strong impression upon the heart. They have not, however, so far fled as to remove from the mind the danger of wanton innovation; and are sufficiently remembered to teach us the value of preventive wisdom; in the words of a great monarch as well as an inspired statesman-"the beginning of strife, is, as when one letteth out water." CHAPTER V.. Of the State of Stockton Castle at the time of its TOCKTON castle, as we have seen, did not fall a sacrifice to the ravages of time, but to the distracted state of the kingdom. The order of parliament for the sale of the bishop's lands, brought it into the hands of private persons, who appear to have demolished it for the sale of its materials. The only stone houses at present in Stockton have been built out of the ruins of the castle. In "a particular of lands belonging to the bishop of Durham, sold by virtue of an ordinance, intitled, an ordinance for abolishing of archbishops and bishops within the kingdom of England and dominion of Wales, and for settling their lands and possessions upon trustees for the use of the Commonwealth, to be disposed of as both houses of parliament shall think fit and appoint," we find that on March 24, 1647-8, Stockton manor was sold to William Underwood and James Nelthorpe, for £6,165. 10s. 24d.* The castle was not totally destroyed till four years after, according to the following memorandum, 1652 Castrum de Stockton fuit totalit. dirutum."" At present we may safely say, * Strype's Annals, vol. 2, (Appendix) p. 65. Willis's Cathedrals, apud Hutchinson's Durham, vol. 1, 513. + Mickleton's MSS. apud ib d. |