September 8, 1642
September 8, 1642
The story as it unfolds:

PEACE REJECTED; LEICESTER THREATENED; and Today, a special feature! An essay in Anglia Rediviva, by Sydney Holyfen, recounting an episode from his miserable tenure at the Court of King Charles.


You are a bit More than a mere Sprat;  a Sprat, let us Posit,  of somewhere near twenty years; the Second Son of a Knight who hath Pickled one-notable Gifts as a Soldier in Drink and Dissipated the Fortune of your Ancient Family by complete Contempt for the Elemental principles of Economy. You have been tossed, Sprat-like, into the Pan of Court, there to learn the Arts of the Courtier, and by Fawning, and Flattery, and the myriad Obsequoisnessess that while Natural to the Spaniard, the Frenchman, the Moor, and the Russian, are an Offense to any free-born Englishman;  but through which (it is hoped) such Crumbs will be swept from the Royal Table as will permit Reconstruction of the Lost Fortune.

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Grant the King a loan £2000, Prince Rupert of the Rhine told the citizens of Leicester, or I will make a Magdeburg out of you.

Rupert, nephew to Charles and commander of his horse, made the demand two days in a letter to the corporation of Leicester, county town of the eponymous shire and a center of the hosiery trade.

If Leicester should refuse or ignore Rupert’s request, “I shall tomorrow appear before your town in such a posture with horse, foot and cannon as shall make you know it is more safest to obey than resist His Majesty’s command,” the letter said.

Rupert’s threats called to mind the sack of Madgeburg in 1631 by Graf zu Pappenheim and Count Tilly of the Catholic League, which resulted in the cruel murder of 25,000 Protestants by their mercenary armies and the utter devastation of a once-wealthy trading city on the Elbe.

The Leicester corporation offered £500. “Ungehort!” bellowed Rupert, and ordered the artillery train brought up from Nottingham.

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Parliament has spurned a second offer of peace from King Charles, less than two weeks after rejecting the monarch’s first, and declared it would confiscate the property of the King's supporters to meet the expenses of the war.

Delivered three days ago by Lord Falkland , the King offered “with all cheerfulness” to take down his standard, erected on August 22 in Nottingham, provided Parliament first revoke “its declarations against all persons as traitors for assisting us."

“Our chief desire in this world is to beget a good understanding and mutual confidence betwixt us and our two Houses of Parliament,” the King wrote.

Parliament in its rejection reminded the King of its letter of August 27, which stated it would not treat with Charles unless he first lowered his standard and recalled his proclamation declaring those opposing him to be traitors.

“We cannot recede from our former answer,” Parliament wrote to Charles.

The “good and well-affected subjects” of England, Parliament said, will be repaid all monies lent Parliament “out of the estates of delinquents and of the malignant and disaffected party” in the Kingdom.

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NEW YORK

Printed by RAYOGRAM, near the Tombs,
for Commissary-General JAMES HOLLOWAY,
and available through the AETHER; 2009.