fashion at St. James’s, did not get away at this time; but managed it by and by, with help of a certain diligent intriguer and turncoat called Colonel Bamfield;[1] of whom we may hear farther.
On Thursday 11th February 1646-7, on the road between Mansfield and Nottingham,—road between Newcastle and Holmby House,—‘Sir Thomas Fairfax went and met the King; who stopped his horse: Sir Thomas alighted, and kissed the King’s hand; and afterwards mounted, and discoursed with the King as they passed towards Nottingham.’[2] The King had left Newcastle on the 8rd of the month; got to Holmby, or Holdenby, on the 13th:—and ‘there,’ says the poor Iter Carolinum, ‘during pleasure.’
Before reading these two following Letters, read this Extract from a work still in Manuscript, and not very sure of ever getting printed:
‘The Presbyterian “Platform” of Church Government, as recommended by the Assembly of Divines or “Dry-Vines,” has at length, after unspeakable debatings, passings and re-passings through both Houses, and soul’s-travail not a little, about “ruling-elders,” “power of the keys,” and suchlike,—been got finally passed, though not without some melancholy shades of Erastianism, or “the Voluntary Principle,” as the new phrase runs. The Presbyterian Platform is passed by Law: and London and other places, busy “electing their ruling-elders,” are just about ready to set it actually on foot. And now it is hoped there will be some “uniformity” as to that high matter.
