vi. 2): the Israelites for their sins were oppressed by Midian, and were

compelled to hide from them in dens and caves of the mountains. _Gideon_: the Israelites prayed to God for deliverance from their enemies, and an angel sent Gideon, who destroyed Baal's altar and delivered Israel (Judges vi.). _Loudon_: Scottish lord and covenanter; committed to the Tower for soliciting the aid of the king of France: he was sent to Scotland by Charles. _Hamilton_, Marquess of: sent by Charles to Scotland as commissioner to suppress the Covenant, he dared not land; was suspected of treason, and fled; was restored to the King's favour, and became a leader of the royalists; was defeated by the parliamentary troops; fined £100,000, and executed. _Joab_: David, when dying, gave charge to Solomon to put his enemy Joab to death, which was done (1 Kings ii. 28-34). "_No Feltons_": J. Felton assassinated Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and was executed. _Gracchus_: Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, the celebrated Roman tribunes, were after their death worshipped as gods, and their mother esteemed herself the happiest of Roman matrons in having given birth to such illustrious sons. _The Petition of Right_, the second great charter of English liberties, was directed against those grievances which Wentworth thus described in his speech in the third parliament: "the raising of money by loans, strengthened by commission, with unheard-of instruction; the billeting of soldiers by the lieutenants.... Our persons have been injured both by imprisonment without law (the King exercised an absolute right to imprison any one without legal proceedings), and by being designed to some office, charge, and employment, foreign or domestic, as a brand of infamy and mark of disgrace" (Prof. Gardiner). _Aceldama_: "a field said to have lain south of Jerusalem, purchased with the bribe which Judas took for betraying his Master, and therefore called the _field of blood_;--sometimes used in figurative sense" (_Webster's Dict._). _Nathaniel Fiennes_ was the second son of William Fiennes; he was a lawyer, and in 1640 sat in the House of Commons for Banbury. He was a rigid Presbyterian, and a member of nearly all Cromwell's parliaments. _Ship money_: "An imposition formerly charged on the ports, towns, cities, boroughs and counties of England, for providing and furnishing certain ships for the king's service. The attempt made by Charles I. to revive and enforce this imposition was resisted by John Hampden, and was one of the causes which led to the death of Charles. It was finally abolished" (_Webster's Dict._). "_Wentworth's influence in the North_": Wentworth represented Yorkshire in parliament, and had great influence in the north of England.--Scene ii. "_Old Vane_" was secretary of state and comptroller of the household under Charles I. _Savill_: George Savill, Marquis of Halifax (?). _Holland, Earl of_: raised forces against the parliament after espousing its cause against Charles; he was tried after the King's death and executed. "_Lady Carlisle_ was the daughter of the ninth Earl of Northumberland. In 1639 she had been for three years a widow. Her husband was James, Lord Hay, created successively Viscount Doncaster and Earl of Carlisle" (from Miss Hickey's _Strafford_). _Weston, Sir Richard_, Chancellor of the Exchequer, made Earl of Portland; denounced by Sir J. Eliot as an enemy of the Commonwealth. "_This frightful Scots affair_": Professor Gardiner shows that Strafford opposed peace with the Scots, supported the harshest measures, and urged the King to invade Scotland (_Encyc. Brit._, vol xxii., p. 586). "_In this Ezekiel chamber_": in the eighth chapter of Ezekiel the prophet has a vision of the chambers of imagery where he saw "wicked abominations." "_The Faction_," a party acting in opposition to the constituted authority.--Act II., Scene i. "_Subsidies_," says Blackstone, were taxes, not immediately on property, but on persons in respect of their reputed estates, after the nominal rate of 4_s._ in the pound for lands and 2_s._ 8_d._ for goods. _cockatrice_: "The basilisk; a fabulous serpent, said to be produced from a cock's egg brooded by a serpent. Its breath, and even its look, is fabled to be fatal" (_Webster's Dict._). _Star Chamber_: "The origin of this court is derived from the most remote antiquity. Its title was derived from the _Camera Stellata_ or Star Chamber, an apartment in the king's palace at Westminster, in which it held its sittings; it exercised an illegal control over the ordinary courts of justice, and in the reign of Charles I. became very tyrannical and offensive as a means of asserting the royal prerogative. It was abolished by the Long Parliament" (_Student's Hume_, p. 358).--Scene ii. _The George_: a figure of St. George on horseback, worn by knights of the Garter. _A masque_, a species of dramatic entertainment. Fletcher and Ben Jonson wrote many masques which were acted at Court. The most beautiful work of this kind is the Comus of Milton. Act III., Scene i.--_The new Parliament_: "The Long Parliament," which met Nov. 3rd, 1640; it voted the House of Lords as useless. _The Great Duke_: Buckingham.--Scene ii. _Windebank_, one of the secretaries of state, was impeached by the Commons for treason, and escaped to France. "_sly, pitiful intriguing with the Scots_": "Charles, in his eagerness to conclude the negotiation, was induced to concede many points which he would otherwise have refused" (Lingard, _Hist. Eng._, vol. vii., p. 232). "_The Crew and the Cabal_": the "crew" was a number of people associated together; the "cabal" a number of persons united to promote their private views in church or state by intrigue. What is usually understood by the "cabal" was a name given to a ministry under Charles II., the initial letters of the names of its members forming the word cabal. _Mainwaring, Dr._, a clergyman who preached in favour of the general loan. He was impeached by the Commons. _Goring, Colonel_: he was Governor of Portsmouth, was an officer of distinguished merit, and devoted to the King.--Scene iii., _rufflers_, bullies, swaggerers. "_Are we in Geneva?_": Calvin's city, where all sorts of puritanical restrictions were enforced against harmless amusements as well as breaches of morality. _St. John, Oliver_: St. John was Solicitor-General; he was one of the leaders of the Independents. _stockishness_, hardness, stupidity, blockishness (rare). _Maxwell, Usher of the Black Rod._ He received Strafford as his prisoner, after his impeachment, and required him to deliver his sword.--Act IV.,