By these means,
every man of rank and eminence who had been distinguished by a
constitutional struggle against arbitrary acts of power, and afterwards
reluctantly led into open rebellion, was cashiered and dismissed from
the army and from all official situations, which were thus left open to
the fanatical party.
Alarmed at the high hand with which this ordinance was carried, the old
commonwealth's men strained every nerve to renew a pacificatory
intercourse with the King, which they effected; but their power extended
no further; the preliminaries were clogged with terms wholly destructive
of the church, and virtually tending to abolish regal power. The ruin or
death of all the King's adherents was resolved on; and in proof that the
fanatics could not only threaten but act, the venerable Archbishop Laud,
after suffering a long imprisonment, was dragged to the scaffold. Thus
the Parliamentary commissioners set out for Uxbridge with their banners
dipped in the blood of the highest subject in the realm, the head of the
Anglican church, and His Majesty's personal friend.
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