[Footnote 2: Fiennes, to clear himself from the imputation of cowardice, demanded a court-martial, and Prynne and Walker, who had accused him in their publications, became the prosecutors.

Vane drew a most unfavourable portrait of the king, and represented all his promises and professions as hollow and insincere; Fiennes became for the first time the royal apologist, and refuted the charges brought by his fellow commissioner; and Prynne, the celebrated adversary of Laud, seemed to forget his antipathy to the court, that he might lash the presumption and perfidy of the army.

The protector took the seals from the two first, and gave them Fiennes and Lisle; Lenthall overcame his scruples, and remained in office.

Fiennes, one of the commissioners of the great seal, replied, that the duty of inquiry into the qualifications of the members was, by the "instrument," vested in the lords of the council, who had discharged that trust according to the best of their judgment.

It was short, but its brevity was compensated by its piety, and after an exposition of the eighty-fifth psalm, he referred his two houses for other particulars to Fiennes, the lord-keeper, who, in a long and tedious [Footnote 1: Thurloe, vi. 231, 287, 426, 512, 538, 542, 580, 637, 665, 676, 731.

The speech of Fiennes is reported in the Journals, Jan. 25.

The committee consisted, in Thurloe's words, of Lord Fiennes, Lord Fleetwood, Lord Desborow, Lord Chamberlayne, Lord Whalley, Mr. Comptroller, Lord Goffe, Lord Cooper, and himself (p. 192).

Thurloe, Broghill, Fiennes, and Wolseley maintained, on the contrary, that the dissension between the parliament and the army was irreconcilable; and that on the first shock between them, the Cavaliers would rise simultaneously in the [Footnote 1: Thurloe, 555, 557, 558, 662.

These proceedings, however, did not prevent Fiennes, the head commissioner, from dissolving the parliament; and the important intelligence was communicated to the three nations by proclamation in the same afternoon.

to guard the south coast; Battle Abbey, founded by William the Norman, and calling up in review the battle of Hastings, and the Bayeaux tapestry; the Roman fort of Pevensey; and Hurstmonceaux Castle built by Roger Fiennes, treasurer to King Henry VI.

The Parliament questioned Colonel Nathaniel Fiennes, the governor, and had him tried as a coward by a court-martial, and condemned to die, but suspended the execution also, as the king did the governor of Reading.