A27006:345
Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his…
Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his life and times faithfully published from his own original manuscript by Matthew Sylvester.Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his life and times faithfully publish'd from his own original manuscript by Matthew Sylvester.
London: printed for T. Parkhurst, 1696
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
A great part of the Lords forsook the Parliament, and so did many of the House of Commons, and came to the King; but that was for the most of them, after Edghill Fight, when the King was at Oxford. A very great part of the Knights and Gentlemen of England in the several Counties (who were not Parliament Men) adhered to the King; except in Middlesex, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, &c. where the King with his Army never came: And could he have got footing there, it's like that it would have been there as it was in other places: And most of the Tenants of these Gentlemen, and also most of the poorest of the People, whom the other called the Rabble, did follow the Gentry, and were for the King.
On the Parliaments side were (besides themselves) the smaller part (as some thought) of the Gentry in most of the Counties, and the greatest part of the Tradesmen, and Free-holders, and the middle sort of Men; especially in those Corporations and Countries which depend on Clothing and such Manufactures.
If you ask the Reasons of this Difference, ask also, why in France it is not commonly the Nobility nor the Beggars, but the Merchants and middle sort of Men, that were Protestants. The Reasons which the Party themselves gave was, Because (say they) the Tradesmen have a Correspondency with London, and so are grown to be a far more Intelligent sort of Men than the ignorant Peasants that are like Brutes, who will follow any that they think the strongest, or look to get by: And the Freeholders, say they, were not enslaved to their Landlords as the Tenants are: The Gentry, (say they) are wholly by their Estates and Ambition more ⟨p. 31⟩dependent on the King, than their Tenants on them; and many of them envied the Honour of the Parliament, because they were not chosen Members themselves. The other side said, That the Reason was because the Gentry (who commanded their Tenants) did better understand Affairs of State than half-witted Tradesmen and Freeholders do.