A YEAR had passed since Ardennes landing his native shores, unfixed of purpose, and, above all, an advocate for peace -a year in which events had taken place that rendered hopeless all accommodation between the hostile. parties, until one should have been proved decidedly superior. The very day on which the King had fled from London lest he should witness the return of the five members to the House, having been signalized , by a most wild and ill-digested movement of the fiery Lunsford, sufficiently disclosed the intentions of the royalists by an attempt to seize a magazine of arms at Kingston-Then came the treachery of Goring-the Kings fruitless effort against Hull-the calling out of the militia, the arming on both sides, and all the desultory skirmishes of small parties that were occurring daily for some months previous to the nominal commencement of the war. The Queen, who had escaped to IIolland, stealing and bearing with her the crown-jewels which were pawned at once to furnish arms, and men and money, was setting every spring in motion on the continent.-Rupert and Mau rice had arrived in England, and the former was, on his first interview, appointed general of the cavalry. The royal standard had been raised, some two months past, at Nottingham, with evil omens, and under auspices the most unfavourable-a mighty tempest having poured its fury on the gathering of the troops, dispirited, and few in number, and unfurnished with the most evident and indispensable equipments of an army-weapons, clothes, and arnmunitioo . The flag itself, displaying, in addition to the wonted quarterings of England, a small escutcheon charged with the royal bearings and the crown, and compassed by a scroll with the proud motto Render his due to Ceesar, was scarcely elevated, ere a heavier gust of wind, accompanied with floods of rain and a fierce crash of thunder, shivered the staff in twain and dashed the ensign violently to the grouild, while such was the increasing fury of the tem pest that two whole days elapsed before it could be reared again. Still, although by thii overt act the King had most unquestionably issued his appeal to the sword, as to the sole remaining arbiter, matters went on but heartlessly and slowly. Each side, averse to throw away the scabbard, paused in grim and terrible suspense, irreconcileably hostile to the other, yet unwilling to incur the blame of being first to strike, or foremost to refuse accommodation...