ABSTRACT
The National League and Covenant was proclaimed and sworn to by the people everywhere. The King pursued delaying tactics, but the Scotch remained immovable, and at last Charles had no alternative but to raise a regular and effective army, for which more money was required than his compulsory levies and other financial devices brought him in. Meanwhile concession after concession was extorted from Charles. He was forced to sacrifice his friend and counsellor, Strafford, who was impeached by Parliament, condemned, and on May 12, 1641, beheaded. Parliament had, of course, not overlooked the victims of the persecutions by King and bishops. The home of Lollardism, where sectarians of all kinds abounded, produced the nucleus of the Parliamentary Army, Cromwell’s Ironsides, as they were later called. The increase of the sectarian element caused the withdrawal of the Presbyterian field chaplains, in whose place laymen, who felt moved by inspiration, undertook the preaching.
