Chapter III: End of the Reign of Charles I (1)

Differences between the Presbyterians and Independents--The King
at Holmby--Attempt to Disband the Army--Consequent Petitions
to Parliament--The Adjutators--Meeting at Newmarket--Seizure
of the King--Advance of the Army on London--Stubbornness
of the Presbyterians--The Army Marches through London--Its
Proposals to Charles--Their Rejection--The King throws away
his Best Chances--The Levellers--Cromwell's Efforts on
behalf of Charles--Renewed Intrigues of Charles--Flight to
Carisbrooke--Attempts to Rescue the King--Charles Treats with the
Scots--Consequent Reaction in his Favour--Battle of Preston and
Suppression of the Insurrection--Cromwell at Edinburgh--The Prince
of Wales in Command of the Fleet--Negotiations at Newport--Growing
Impatience of the Army--Petitions for the King's Trial--Charles's
Blindness and Duplicity--He is Removed to Hurst Castle--Pride's
Purge--Supremacy of the Independents--The Whiggamores--Hugh Peters'
Sermon in St. Margaret's, Westminster--Ordinance for the King's
Trial--Trial and Execution of Charles I.

For a long time the difference of opinion between the Presbyterians and the Independents had been growing more marked and determined. The latter, from a small knot of Dissenters, had grown into a considerable one, and the more influential, because the most able and active, leaders of both Parliament and army were of that sect. Under the head of Independents, however, ranged themselves, so far as politics were concerned, a variety of other Dissenters--Arminians, Millenaries, Baptists and Anabaptists, Familists, Enthusiasts, Seekers, Perfectists, Socinians, Arians, and others--all of whom claimed freedom of worship, according to their peculiar faiths. On the other hand, the Presbyterians, backed by the Scots, were bent on establishing a religious despotism. Their tenets and form of government were alone to be tolerated. They were as resolute sticklers for conformity as the Catholics, or Charles and Laud themselves. They set up the same claims to be superior to the State, and allowed of no appeal from their tribunals to those of the civil magistrate. Having established the Directory for the form of worship, they erected an assembly, with its synods, and divided the whole kingdom into provinces, the provinces into classes, the classes into presbyteries or elderships. They declared that "the keys of the kingdom of heaven were committed to the officers of the Church, by virtue whereof they had power to retain and remit sins, to shut the kingdom of heaven against the impenitent by censures, and to open it to the penitent by absolution." They claimed a right to inquire into the private lives of persons, and of suspending the unworthy from the Sacrament.

All these assumptions the Independents denied, and would not admit any authority over the free action of individual congregations. The Commons, through the influence of Selden and Whitelock, proposed to the Assembly of Divines nine questions respecting the nature and object of the divine right to which they aspired, and before they could answer these, the army and the Independents, its leaders, had effected still more embarrassing changes. The king being conquered, and the Scots having withdrawn, the contest lay no longer between the king and Parliament, but between the Presbyterians and Independents, or, what was nearly synonymous, the Parliament and the Army.

The king was conducted to Holmby by easy journeys, and treated by his attendants with courtesy. The people flocked to see him, and showed that the traditions of royalty were yet strong in them. They received him with acclamations, uttered prayers for his preservation, and not a few of them pressed forward to be touched for the "evil." On his arrival at Holmby, he found a great number of ladies and gentlemen assembled to welcome him, with every demonstration of pleasure, and his house and table well appointed and supplied. He passed his time in reading, in riding about the country, and in different amusements--as chess and bowls, riding to Althorpe, or even to Harrowden, because there was no good bowling-green at Holmby. One thing only he complained of, and requested to have altered. The Parliament sent him clergymen of their own persuasion to attend him; he begged that any two out of his twelve chaplains might be substituted, but was refused. The Presbyterian ministers allotted him were Thomas Herbert, and Harrington, the author of "Oceana," with whose conversation Charles was much pleased on all subjects but religion and form of government. But though Charles passed the bulk of his time in relaxation, he was not insensible to his situation; and when he had been left there for three months without notice, he addressed to Parliament a letter in which he proposed to allow Presbyterian Church government for three years, his own liberty of worship being granted, and twenty clergymen of the Church of England admitted to the Westminster Assembly; the question of religion at the end of that period was to be finally settled by himself and the two Houses in the usual way, and the command of the army was also to be left to Parliament for ten years, and then to revert to him. The Lords gladly assented to this offer, but the Commons did not entertain it, and other matters soon claimed their attention.

The Presbyterians had, during the active engagements of the army, and the consequent absence of the leading Independents, strengthened their ranks by many new members of Parliament, and they now set about to reduce the power of their opponents by disbanding the greater part of the army. They decreed in February that three thousand horse, twelve hundred dragoons, and eight thousand four hundred foot, should be withdrawn from Fairfax's army and sent to Ireland, and that besides one thousand dragoons and five thousand four hundred horse, all the rest of the army should be disbanded, except as many soldiers as were necessary to man the forty-five castles and fortresses which remained. This would have completely prostrated the power of the Independents; and Cromwell, on whose shrewd character and military success they now looked with terror, would have been first sacrificed, as well as Ireton, Ludlow, Blake, Skippon, Harrison, Algernon Sidney, and others, who had fought the real battle of the late contest. The heads of the Presbyterians in Parliament consisted of unsuccessful commanders--Holles, Waller, Harley, Stapleton, and others--who hated the successful ones, both on account of their brilliant success and of their religion. Fairfax, though a Presbyterian, went along with his officers in all the love of toleration.

It was voted in the Commons, not only that no officer under Fairfax should have higher rank than that of colonel, but that no one should hold a commission who did not take the Covenant and conform to the government of the Church as fixed by Parliament. This would have been a sweeping measure, had the Parliament not had a very obvious party motive in it, and had it paid its soldiers, and been in a condition to discharge them. But at this moment they were immensely in arrears with the pay of the army, and that body, feeling its strength, at once broke up its cantonments round Nottingham, and marched towards London, halting only at Saffron Walden. This movement created a terrible alarm in the City, Parliament regarded it as a menace, but Fairfax excused it on the plea of the exhausted state of the country round their old quarters. The Commons hastened to vote sixty thousand pounds towards the payment of arrears, which amounted to forty-three weeks for the horse and eighteen for the infantry. In the City, the Council and the Presbyterians got up a petition to both Houses, praying that the army might be removed farther from London; but at the same moment a more startling one was in progress from the Independents, addressed to "the supreme authority of the nation, the Commons in Parliament assembled." It not only gave this significant hint of its opinion where the real power of the State lay, but denounced the House of Lords as assuming undue authority, and complained of the persecution and exclusion from all places of trust of those who could not conform to the Church government imposed. The House of Commons condemned this Republican petition, and ordered the army not to approach nearer than twenty-five miles of London. A deputation was sent down to Saffron Walden, where Fairfax summoned a convention of officers to answer them. These gentlemen, on the mention of being sent to Ireland, said they must know, before they could decide, what regiments, what commanders were to go, and whether they were sure of getting their arrears and their future daily pay. They demanded their arrears and some recompense for past services. The Commissioners, not being able to answer these demands, returned and reported to the Commons, mentioning also a petition in progress in the army. Alarmed at this, the Commons summoned to their bar some of the principal officers--Lieutenant-General Hammond, Colonel Robert Hammond, his brother, Colonel Robert Lilburn, Lieutenant-Colonel Grimes, and Colonel Ireton, Cromwell's son-in-law, a member of the House; and they voted that three regiments, commanded by the staunch Presbyterian officers Poyntz, Copley, and Bethell should remain at home. But what roused the army more than all besides, was a motion made by Denzil Holles, and carried, that the army's petition, which was not yet presented, was an improper petition, and that all who were concerned in it should be proceeded against as enemies to the State and disturbers of the public peace.

This declaration of the 30th of March was little short of an act of madness. It could only excite the indignation of a power against which the Parliament, grown unpopular, and divided against itself, was but as a reed in a whirlwind. The officers pronounced it "a blot of infamy" upon them, and the Parliament was glad to attempt to lay the storm by voting, on the 8th of April, that the regiments of Fairfax, Cromwell, Rossiter, Whalley, and Graves, should remain in England. A week afterwards the Commons sent down another deputation, accompanied by the Earl of Warwick, who harangued the officers earnestly to engage for Ireland, promising that Major-General Skippon should command them. Many were pleased with them, but more cried out, "Fairfax and Cromwell! Give us Fairfax and Cromwell, and then we all go!"

On the return of the deputation without success, the Commons debated whether they should not disband the whole army. Holles strongly recommended it, and that they should give the soldiers six weeks' pay on disbanding. He thought it would be easy then to engage the men to go to Ireland under other officers, and that four of those officers who were regarded as most hostile in this movement should be summoned to the bar of the House. How miserably he was mistaken was immediately shown, for a petition was presented that very day (the 27th of April), signed by Lieutenant-General Hammond, fourteen colonels and lieutenant-colonels, six majors, and one hundred and thirty captains, lieutenants, and other commissioned officers. It was drawn up in energetic language, complaining of the calumnies spread abroad regarding the army, and enumerating the services they had done, the sacrifices they had made for the Commonwealth, and praying for the payment of the soldiers' arrears. It declared, indeed, that this movement of petitioning had commenced amongst the soldiers, and that the officers had been induced to take it up to prevent anything unacceptable to the House from being put forward.

But the petition of the officers did not prevent the petition of the men. When they saw the Commons did not immediately comply with the petition of the officers, smarting under the vote of disbandment, coupled with the withholding of their pay, horse dragoons and infantry went on their own way. They had lately entered into an association to make their complaints known. The officers had established a military council to consult on and take care of the interests of the army, and the men established a council too. Two commissioned officers, but not exceeding in rank ensigns, and two private soldiers from each regiment, met from time to time to discuss the wants of the army. They were called Adjutators or assistants in the cause, and the word soon became corrupted into Agitators. Thus there was a sort of army Parliament--the officers representing the Peers, the soldiers the Commons. The whole scheme has been, and it is probable very justly, ascribed to the genius of Cromwell. What confirms the supposition is, that an old friend of his, Berry, a captain, became its president, and that Ayres and Desborough, his two particular friends, the latter of whom had married his sister, were in close communication with the leading officers amongst the Agitators.

These movements on the part of the army, and the zealous manner in which Cromwell rose and vindicated the conduct of the soldiers on this occasion, warning the House not to drive so loyal and meritorious a body as the army to desperation, caused them to order him, Skippon, and Fleetwood to go down to the army and quiet its discontent by assuring the soldiers of pay and indemnification. These three, on the 7th of May, met the officers, who demanded time to prepare an answer after consulting their regiments. There appeared to have been doubts and dissension sown by the Presbyterians, and as the different regiments came to opposite conclusions, the Parliament thought it might venture to disband them. On the 25th it was settled that such regiments as did not volunteer for Ireland should be disbanded at fixed times and places. Fairfax, pleading indisposition, left the House and hastened down to the army, and immediately marched it from Saffron Walden to Bury St. Edmunds. The soldiers declared that they would not disband till they were paid, and demanded a rendezvous, declaring that if the officers did not grant it they would hold it themselves. Fairfax announced this to the Parliament, praying it to adopt soothing measures; and that, though he was compelled to comply with a measure out of order, he would do what he could to preserve it. The House, on the 28th, sent down the Earl of Warwick, the Lord Delaware, Sir Gilbert Gerrard, and three other members of the Commons, to promise eight weeks' pay, and to see the disbanding effected. On hearing the terms from the Commissioners, the soldiers exclaimed:--"Eight weeks' pay! We want nearer eight times eight!" There was universal confusion; the men refused to disband without full payment. They hastened to their rendezvous at Bury St. Edmunds, each man paying fourpence towards the expenses; and they ordered that the army should draw together, and a general rendezvous be held on the 4th of June. At Oxford the soldiers seized the disbanding money as _part_ payment, and demanded the rest, or no disbanding.

On the 4th and 5th of June, accordingly, the grand rendezvous was held on Kentford Heath, near Newmarket. They entered into a covenant to see justice done to one and all, and not till then to listen to any other orders or terms. Meanwhile, a still more extraordinary scene had taken place, of which the direct springs may be guessed, but which springs were so closely concealed that no clever historian could ever lay them bare. Scarcely was the honourable House of Commons in possession of the news of the Kentford Heath rendezvous, when it was paralysed by this still more amazing announcement.

The House of Lords, not liking the proceedings of the army, had ordered the king for greater safety to be removed from Holmby to Oatlands, nearer the capital. The army anticipated that move; and by whose orders no man knows, nor ever will know, Cornet Joyce, of Whalley's regiment, followed by a strong party of horse, presented himself on the 2nd of June, a little after midnight, at Holmby House. After surrounding the house with his troop, said to be one thousand strong, he knocked and demanded admittance, telling Major-General Brown and Colonel Graves that he was come to speak to the king. "From whom?" demanded these officers, awoke from their sleep. "From myself," said Joyce; whereat they laughed. But Joyce told them it was no laughing matter. They then advised him to draw off his troops, and in the morning he should see the Commissioners. Joyce replied that he was not come there to be advised by them, or to talk to the Commissioners, but to speak to the king; and speak to him he would, and that soon. At this threat Brown and Graves bade their soldiers stand to their arms and defend the place; but the soldiers, instead, threw open the doors, and bade their old comrades welcome. Joyce then went direct to the chamber of the Commissioners, and informed them that there was a design to seize the king, and place him at the head of an army to put down that under General Fairfax; and that, to prevent another war, he was come to secure the person of the king, and see that he was not led into further mischief; for, added the cornet, "there be some who endeavour to pull down king and people, and set up themselves."

The Commissioners desired him not to disturb the king's sleep, but to wait till morning, and they would tell his majesty of his arrival and business. In the morning Joyce found that Brown had contrived to send off Graves to fetch up the king's guard; and "some of his damning blades did say and swear they would fetch a party." But Joyce--a stout fellow for a tailor, which he had been--did not trouble himself about that, for he knew the guard would not move, and at length insisted on being admitted to the king himself.

According to Joyce's own account, it was ten o'clock in the evening again when he was ushered, with two or three of his followers, into the royal presence. The soldiers took off their hats, and displayed no rudeness, but a blunt proceeding to business. According to Clarendon, the cornet told the king that he was sorry to have disturbed his sleep, but that he must go with him. Charles asked whither. He said to the army. But where was the army, replied the king. The cornet said they would show him. His majesty asked by what authority they came. Joyce said "By this!" and showed him his pistol, and desired his majesty to cause himself to be dressed, because it was necessary they should make haste. The king sent for the Commissioners, who asked Joyce whether he had any order from Parliament. He said no. From the general? No. What, then, was his authority? He gave the same reply as to the king, by holding up his pistol. They said they would write to the Parliament to learn its pleasure, to which Joyce replied, they could do so, but the king meanwhile must go with him.

Finding that the soldiers sent for would not come, and that the officers of the guard said that Joyce's troop were not soldiers of one regiment, but drawn from several regiments, and that Joyce was not their proper officer, it was clear that there was a general design in the affair, and the king said he would go with them at six in the morning. At the hour appointed the king appeared on horseback, and found the troop all mounted and ready. The king had overnight demanded of Joyce whether he should be forced to do anything against his conscience, and whether he should have his servants with him; and Joyce replied that there was no intention to lay any constraint on his majesty, only to prevent his being made use of to break up the army before justice had been done to it. Before starting, Charles again demanded from Joyce, in the presence of the troop, where was his commission, enjoining him to deal ingenuously with him, and repeating, "Where, I ask you again, is your commission?" "Here," said Joyce, "behind me," pointing to the soldiers. Charles smiled, and said, "It is a fair commission, and as well written as I have ever seen a commission written in my life; a company of handsome, proper gentlemen, as I have seen a great while. But what if I should refuse to go with you? I hope you would not force me. I am your king; you ought not to lay violent hands on your king. I acknowledge none to be above me here but God." He then demanded again whither they proposed to conduct him. Oxford and Cambridge were named, to both of which places Charles objected. Newmarket was next named, and to that he consented. So the first day they rode to Hinchinbrook, and the next to Childersley, near Newmarket.

The news of these proceedings of the army carried consternation into the two Houses of Parliament, and into the City, where the Presbyterian party was in full strength. They ordered the immediate arrest of Cromwell, which they had been intending some time, but they were informed that he left town the very same morning that Joyce appeared at Holmby--a significant fact--and was seen riding away with only one attendant. He reached the headquarters of the army with his horse all in foam. The House voted to sit all the next day, though it was Sunday, and have Mr. Marshall to pray for them. Rumour declared that the army was on its march, and would be there the next day at noon. The House ordered the Committee of Safety to sit up all night, taking measures for the protection of the City; the train-bands to be called out, and all the lines of communication guarded. The next day the shops were shut, the town was in indescribable confusion, and terror in every face, as though the army was already there. The Parliament wrote to Fairfax, commanding that the army should not infringe the order of the two Houses, by coming within twenty-five miles of London, that the king should be returned to the care of the Commissioners who attended him at Holmby, and that Colonel Rossiter's regiment should guard his person. Fairfax replied that the army had reached St. Albans before he received their command, but it should proceed no farther; that he had sent Colonel Whalley with his regiment to meet his majesty on his way from Holmby, and offered to return him thither, but that he preferred the air of Newmarket, and that all care should be taken of his person.

In fact, Charles was delighted with the change. He had escaped from the harsh keeping and the strict regimen of the Presbyterians, whom he detested, and felt himself, as it were, a king again at the head of an army: the dissensions now rushing on so hotly between his enemies wonderfully encouraging his hopes of making friends of the more liberal party. He was in a condition of greater freedom and respect in the army than he had been at Holmby: there was a larger number of troops and the officers were superior. He was relieved from the presence of Cornet Joyce. All restraint being taken off from persons resorting to him, he saw every day the faces of many that were grateful to him. No sooner did he ask for the attendance of his own chaplains than those he named (Drs. Sheldon, Morley, Sanderson, and Hammond) were sent for, and performed the service regularly, no one being forbidden to attend. The king was left to his leisure and his friends, only removing with the army as it moved, and in all places he was as well provided for and accommodated as he had been in any progress. The best gentlemen, Clarendon admits, of the several counties through which he passed, daily resorted to him without distinction. He was attended by some of his old trusty servants in the places nearest his person. On hearing of his present condition, the queen sent Sir John Berkeley from Paris, and his old groom of the chambers, who had been living at Rouen, to be with him again, and they were freely admitted by Cromwell and Ireton. "Many good officers," says Clarendon, "who had served his majesty faithfully, were civilly received by the officers of the army, and lived quietly in their quarters, which they could not do anywhere else, which raised a great reputation to the army throughout England, and as much reproach upon Parliament." This was raised still more by the army's address to Parliament, desiring that "care might be taken for settling the king's rights, according to the several professions they had made in their declarations; and that the royal party might be treated with more candour and less rigour." Even the most devoted of Royalists, Sir Philip Warwick, says, "The deep and bloody-hearted Independents all this while used the king very civilly, admitting several of his servants and some of his chaplains to attend him, and officiate by the service-book."

The Commons ordered all officers to attend their regiments, and sent down Commissioners to inform the army of the votes of the two Houses. The army gave the Commissioners such a reception as no Commissioners had ever witnessed before. Twenty-one thousand men had assembled to a rendezvous on Triploe Heath, near Royston; and the General and the Commissioners rode to each regiment, to acquaint them with the Parliamentary votes as to their instalment of pay, their disbanding, and their not approaching within twenty-five miles of London. The answer was sent up in shouts of "Justice! justice!" A petition also from the well-affected people of Essex was delivered on the field to the General in presence of the Commissioners, against the disbanding, declaring "that the Commonwealth had many enemies, who watched for such an opportunity to destroy the good people." A memorial was, moreover, drawn up and signed by the General and all the chief officers, to the Lord Mayor and Corporation of London, warning them against false representations of the intentions of the army, for that the war being at an end, all that they desired and prayed for was that the peace of the kingdom should be settled according to the declarations of Parliament before the army was called out, and that being done, the army should be paid before it was disbanded.

So far from pacifying the Parliament, these proceedings alarmed it infinitely more, and it issued an order that the army should not come within forty-five miles of the capital. On its part, the army collected addresses from Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and the surrounding counties, praying the purgation of the House from all such members as were disqualified from sitting there by corruption, delinquency, abuse of the State, or undue election; and on the 16th of June, from its headquarters at St. Albans, the army formally impeached of high treason eleven of the most active Presbyterian members. This impeachment was presented to the House by twelve officers of the army--colonels, lieutenant-colonels, majors, and captains. Within a few days the General and officers sent a letter to the House, informing it that they would appoint proper persons to conduct the impeachment, and make good their charges; and desired the House to suspend the accused forthwith, as it was not fitting that those persons who had done their best to prejudice the army should sit as judges of their own actions.

This, says Clarendon, was an arrow out of their own quiver, which the Commons did not expect; and though it was a legitimate consequence of the impeachments of Strafford, Laud, and others, they endeavoured to set it at defiance. The Parliament and its army were, in fact, come to the pass which the brave old Royalist, Sir Jacob Astley, had foreseen when he surrendered his regiment at Stowe, in 1646:--"You have done your work, my masters, and may go and play, unless you will fall out amongst yourselves."

The army, to settle the matter, marched from St. Albans to Uxbridge, and at that sight the eleven members withdrew from the House of Commons, and the Commons assumed a modest and complying behaviour, voting the army under Fairfax to be the real army of England and worthy of all respect. They sent certain proposals to Fairfax, which induced him to remove his headquarters from Uxbridge to Wycombe. The eleven members, looking on this as a degree of submission to Parliament, immediately plucked up courage, and Holles and the rest appeared in their places, preferring charges in return against the officers, and demanding a fair trial. But they soon perceived their mistake, and, soliciting the Speaker's leave of absence and his passport to go out of the kingdom, disappeared.

The struggle between the army and Parliament--that is, between the Presbyterian and Independent interests--was all this time raging. For six weeks the army was advancing or retiring, according as the Parliament acted; the Parliament only giving way through intimidation. According as affairs stood, the City was either peaceful or in alarm, now shutting its shops, now carrying on much negotiation; the army lying still near, and paid more regularly, out of terror, by the Parliament. At length the army had so far succeeded as to have the insulting declaration of Holles--"the blot of ignominy"--erased from the journals of the House, and the ordinance of the 4th of May--procured by Holles--for the placing of the militia of the City in more exclusively Presbyterian hands--revoked. But towards the end of July the strong Presbyterian element in London was again in such ferment that it forgot its terrors of the army, and proceeded to daring extremities. The Presbyterian faction demanded that conventicles--that is, the meeting-houses of all classes, except Presbyterians--should be closed, and called on the citizens to meet in Guildhall to hear the Covenant read, and sign an engagement--soldiers, sailors, citizens, and apprentices--to drive away the army and bring the king to Westminster, and make a treaty with him. A hundred thousand signatures were put to this paper, and had the courage been half as great as the bluster the army had been swept to destruction. On the 26th of July, a few days afterwards, a vast rabble surrounded the Houses of Parliament, calling on both Lords and Commons to restore the order regarding the City militia; they crowded into the Houses with their hats on, crying, "Vote! vote!" and their numbers keeping the doors open. Under this intimidation both Lords and Commons voted the restoration of the Presbyterian ordinance for the change of the militia, and adjourned to Friday.

On Friday the two Houses met, but were astonished to find that their Speakers had fled, accompanied by several members of both Houses, and were gone to the army. It was found that Sir Henry Vane, the Earl of Northumberland, the Earl of Warwick, and other Lords and Commoners were gone. Had it been only Sir Henry Vane and the Independents who had gone, it would have astonished nobody; but neither Lenthall, the Speaker of the Commons, nor the Earl of Manchester, the Speaker of the Lords, was suspected of any great leaning to the army, whilst Warwick was a staunch Presbyterian, and Northumberland so much in the favour of that party as to have the care of the royal children. This circumstance showed the violence of the mob which had forced Parliament, and rendered moderate men resolved to escape rather than submit to be its puppets. There were no less than fifteen Lords and a hundred Commoners who had thus resented mob intimidation.

On making this lamentable discovery, the two Houses elected temporary Speakers, and issued orders forbidding the army to advance, recalling the eleven fugitive members, and ordered Massey, Waller, and Poyntz to call out the militia and defend the City.

No sooner had Fairfax heard the news of these proceedings than he instantly sent the king to Hampton Court, and marched from Bedford to Hounslow Heath, where he ordered a general rendezvous of the whole army. On Hounslow Heath, at the appointed rendezvous, the Speakers of the two Houses, with their maces, and attended by the fugitive Lords and Commons, stated to the general that they had not freedom in Westminster, but were in danger of their lives from tumult, and claimed the protection of the army. The general and the officers received the Speakers and members with profound respect, and assured them they would reinstate them in their proper places, or perish in the attempt. Nothing, in fact, could have been such a godsend to the army; for, besides their own grievances, they had the grievances of the coerced members to redress, and the sanctity of Parliament to defend. They ordered the most careful accommodation for the comfort of the members, and a guard to attend them, consulting them on all their measures. Fairfax quartered his army about Hounslow, Brentford, Twickenham, and the adjacent villages, at the same time ordering Colonel Rainsborough to cross the Thames at Hampton Court with a brigade of horse and foot and cannon, and to secure Southwark and the works which covered the end of London Bridge.

Meanwhile, never was London in more terrible confusion. The Commons, having no mace of their own, sent for the City mace. The colonels were in all haste calling out the militia. On Saturday and Monday, August 1 and 2, the shops were all shut, nothing going on but enlisting and mustering. St. James's Fields were in a stir with drilling; news constantly coming of the approach of the army. "Massey," says Whitelock, "sent out scouts to Brentford; but ten men of the army beat thirty of his, and took a flag from them. The City militia and Common Council sat late, and a great number of people attended at Guildhall. When a scout came in and brought news that the army made a halt, or other good intelligence, they cried, 'One and all!' But if the scouts brought word that the army was advancing, then they would cry as loud, 'Treat! treat! treat!' and thus they spent the night."

Tuesday, August the 3rd, was a fearful day. The people of Southwark declared that they would not fight against the army, and went in crowds to Guildhall, demanding peace, at which Poyntz lost all patience, drew his sword, and slashed many of them, some mortally.

The Southwarkers kept their word, for they received Rainsborough and his troops; the militia openly fraternised with the soldiers, shaking hands with them through the gates, and abandoned to them the works which protected the City. Rainsborough took possession, without opposition, of all the forts and works on that side of the river from Southwark to Gravesend. In the morning the authorities of the City, finding that Southwark was in possession of the army, and the City gate on that side in their hands, were completely prostrated and hastened to make their submission. Poyntz, accustomed to conquest in the field, and the hardihood of the Presbyterian soldiers, was filled with contempt for these cringing, cowering citizens. What! had they not ten thousand men in arms, a loan of ten thousand pounds arranged and orders to raise auxiliary troops to the amount of eighteen regiments? Had they not plenty of ammunition and arms in the Tower, whence they had drawn four hundred barrels of gunpowder and other material for present defence? But all availed not; the citizens hastened to lay themselves and the City at the feet of Fairfax. He had fixed his headquarters at Hammersmith, but he met the civic authorities at Holland House, Kensington, where he dictated the following conditions:--That they should abandon the Parliament now sitting and the eleven impeached members; should restore the militia to the Independents; surrender all their forts, including the Tower; recall their declarations, and conduct themselves peaceably.

On Friday, the 6th of August, Fairfax entered the City, preceded by a regiment of infantry and another of cavalry. He was on horseback, attended by his body-guards and a crowd of gentlemen. A long train of carriages, containing the fugitive Speakers and members (Lords and Commons), followed, and then another regiment of cavalry. The soldiers marched three abreast, with boughs of laurel in their hats. The late turbulent multitudes completed their shame by raising forced acclamations as they passed. Fairfax thus proceeded through Hyde Park, where the Corporation met him, and offered him a great gold cup, which he curtly declined, and so rode on to the Houses of Parliament, where he replaced the Speakers in their respective chairs, and the members in their old places. Not one of the Lords who had remained, except the Earl of Pembroke, ventured to appear, and he declared that he considered the proceedings since the departure of the Speakers as null. No sooner were the Speakers in their places than Parliament voted thanks to the general and the army; made Fairfax commander of all the forces in England and Wales, and Constable of the Tower. It ordered a gratuity of a month's pay for the army, and that the City militia should be divided, and Southwark, Westminster, and the Tower Hamlets should command their own. The Lords voted all Acts of Parliament from the departure of the Speakers, on the 26th of June, to their return on the 6th of August, void; but the resolution did not pass the Commons, where there was a large body of Presbyterians, without much opposition.

The eleven impeached members fled, and were allowed to escape into France, whereupon they were voted guilty of high treason, as well as the Lord Mayor and four aldermen of London, two officers of the train-band, and the Earls of Suffolk, Lincoln, and Middleton, the Lords Willoughby, Hunsdon, Berkeley, and Maynard. The civic officers were sent to the Tower. The City was ordered to find the one hundred thousand pounds voted for the army. Fairfax distributed different regiments about Whitehall and the Houses of Parliament for their protection, and others in the Strand, Holborn, and Southwark, to keep the City quiet. His headquarters were moved to Putney, with forces at Chelsea and Fulham. On Sunday he and the officers attended the preaching of Hugh Peters, the army chaplain, at Putney Church, and thus the Independents were in full power, and the Presbyterians signally humbled.

Before, and also whilst, these events had been taking place, the army had made overtures to the king for peace and a solid settlement of the kingdom. As we have seen, from the moment that the king came into their hands, they had treated him in a far different style to the Presbyterians. He seemed, in his freedom of action, in the admission of his children and friends to his society, in the respect and even friendliness shown him to feel himself a king again. There were many reasons why the Independents should desire to close with the king. Though they had the army with them, they knew that the Presbyterians were far more numerous. London was vehemently Presbyterian, and the Scots were ready to back that party, because essentially the same in religion as themselves. The Independents and all the Dissenters who ranged themselves under their banners were anxious for religious liberty; the Scottish and English Presbyterians had no more idea of such a thing as belonging to Christianity than had the Catholics or the Church of England as represented by Charles and Laud.

From the moment that the king was received by the army, he seems to have won on the goodwill of the officers. Fairfax, on meeting him on his way from Holmby, kissed his hand, and treated him with all the deference due to the sovereign. Cromwell and Ireton, though they did not so far condescend, and kept a degree of distant reserve, as remembering that they had to treat Charles as an enemy, were soon softened, and Cromwell sent him assurances of his attachment, and of his desire to see his affairs set right. Many of the officers openly expressed commiseration of his misfortunes, and admiration of his real piety, and his amiable domestic character. It was not long before such relations were established with him, and with his confidential friends Berkeley, Ashburnham, and Legge, that secret negotiations were commenced for a settlement of all the difficulties between him and his people. The officers made him several public addresses expressive of their sincere desire to see a pacification effected; and Fairfax, to prepare the way, addressed a letter to the two Houses, repelling the aspersion cast upon the army of its being hostile to the monarchy, and avowing that "tender, equitable, and moderate dealings towards him, his family, and his former adherents," should be adopted to heal the feuds of the nation.

It has been the fashion to consider Cromwell as a consummate hypocrite, and to regard all that he did as a part acted for the ultimate attainment of his own ends. This is the view which Clarendon has taken of him; but, whatever he might do at a later period, everything shows that at this time both he and his brother officers were most really in earnest, and, could Charles have been brought to subscribe to any terms except such as gave up the nation to his uncontrolled will, at this moment his troubles would have been at an end, and he would have found himself on a constitutional throne, with every means of honour and happiness in his power. Nothing more convincingly demonstrates this than the conditions which the Parliament submitted to him. They, in fact, greatly resembled the celebrated conditions of peace offered at Uxbridge, with several propositions regarding Parliament and taxation, which mark a wonderfully improved political knowledge and liberality in the officers. They did not even insist on the abolition of the hierarchy, but merely stipulated for the toleration of other opinions, taking away all penalties for not attending church, and for attending what were called conventicles. The command of the army by Parliament was to be restricted to ten years; only five of the Royalist adherents were to be excluded from pardon, and some less objectionable mode of protecting the State against Catholic designs than the present oppressive laws against recusants was to be devised. Parliaments were to continue two years, unless dissolved earlier by their own consent; and were to sit every year for a prescribed term, or a shorter one, if business permitted. Rotten boroughs, or such as were insignificant, were to be disfranchised, and a greater number of members returned from the counties in proportion to the amount of rates; and all that regarded election of members or reforms of the Commons should belong exclusively to the Commons. There were very judicious regulations for the nomination of sheriffs and of magistrates; the excise was to be taken from all articles of life at once, and from all other articles very shortly: the land-tax was to be fairly and equally apportioned; the irritating maintenance of the clergy by tithes was to be done away with; suits at law were to be made less expensive; all men to be made liable for their debts; and insolvent debtors who had surrendered all their property to their creditors were to be discharged.

The whole project was decidedly creditable to the officers of the army. Charles's own friends and advisers were charmed with it, and flattered themselves that at length they saw a prospect of ending all troubles; but they were quickly undeceived, and struck down in dumb astonishment by Charles rejecting them.

Charles was still the same man; he was at the same moment secretly listening to the overtures of the Scottish Commissioners, who were jealous of the army, and instead of seizing the opportunity to be once more a powerful and beloved king, he was flattering himself with the old idea that he would bring the two great factions "to extirpate each other." Sir John Berkeley, his earnest adviser, says:--"What with having so concurring a second as Mr. Ashburnham, and what with the encouraging messages of Lord Lauderdale and others from the Presbyterian party and the city of London, who pretended to despise the army, and to oppose them to death, his Majesty seemed very much elated; inasmuch that when the proposals were solemnly sent to him, and his concurrence most humbly and earnestly desired, his Majesty, not only to the astonishment of Ireton and the rest, but even to mine, entertained them with very tart and bitter discourses, saying sometimes that he would have no man suffer for his sake, and that he repented of nothing so much as the Bill against the Lord Strafford, which, though most true, was unpleasant for them to hear; that he would have the Church established according to law, by the proposals. They replied it was none of their work to do it; that it was enough for them to waive the point, and, they hoped, enough for his Majesty, since he had waived the government of the Church in Scotland. His Majesty said that he hoped God had forgiven him that sin, and repeated often, 'You cannot be without me; you will fall to ruin if I do not sustain you!'"

It was still the old man; the old intolerable, incorrigible talk. He could not give up a single proposition to save all the rest--his life, his family, his crown, and kingdom. The officers looked at one another in amazement; the king's friends in consternation. Sir John Berkeley whispered in his ear that his Majesty seemed to have some secret strength that they did not know of, on which Charles seemed to recollect himself, and spoke more softly; but it was too late, for Colonel Rainsborough, who was least inclined for the pacification, rode to the army and made known the king's obstinacy. The agitators rushed together in crowds, and, excessively chagrined at the rejection of such terms, burst into the bedchamber of Lord Lauderdale, whom they suspected of having thus perverted the king's mind, and compelled him, in spite of his standing in his position as Commissioner from the Estates of Scotland, to rise, and get off back again to Edinburgh.

At this crisis the alarm at the proceedings in London, and the march upon it just related, took place. Still the officers did not cease their exertions to persuade the king to adopt the proposals; but he was waiting to see what turn affairs would take, and listening at the same time to the Scots and the Irish Catholics. This idea was so little concealed that, talking with Ireton, he let slip the observation, "I shall play my game as well as I can." On which Ireton replied, "If your Majesty has a game to play, you must give us leave also to play ours." As the bluster of the City seemed to subside before the approaching army, Charles sent Berkeley to ask the officers, "If he should accept the proposals, what would ensue?" They said, "We will offer them to the Parliament." "And if they should reject them, what then?" The rest of the officers hesitating to answer such a question, Rainsborough said bluntly, "If they won't agree, we will make them!" to which all the rest instantly assented. Berkeley carried this decisive answer to Charles, but there, he says, he had very different work; he was just as unyielding as ever. Cromwell and Ireton then begged that though the king would not sign the proposals, he would at least write a kind letter to the army, which should show the country that they were doing nothing contrary to his Majesty's mind. With the co-operation of Berkeley, Ashburnham, and others of the king's friends, they met at Windsor, and drew up such a letter, but they could not prevail on him to sign it till the City had yielded, and it was too late. Still the officers, to prove that their triumph had not altered in the least their desire for agreement with the king, again voted the proposals as their terms of settlement. Charles renewed his discussion with them, and was every day sending messages by Ashburnham to Cromwell and Ireton, yet never coming nearer; but, on the other hand, bringing those officers into suspicion with a new and fanatic party which had arisen, which originally called themselves Rationalists, but soon after Levellers.

FROM THE PICTURE BY MISS MARGARET I. DICKSEE, IN THE OLDHAM ART GALLERY]

The Levellers were, in fact, a set of men amongst whom Lilburne, now Colonel John Lilburne, was a leading character. They had imbibed from the Old Testament, which was their favourite study, a spirit of Republicanism combined with a wild fanatic style of language. They found in the remarks on monarchs in the Scriptures, on the election of Saul by Israel, a clear denunciation of all kings, and they declared they would no longer seek after kings, who aimed only at absolute power; nor after lords, who sought only honours and places; but they would have a free government by a Parliament, and a free religion. They drew up a paper called "The Case of the Army," and another called "The Agreement of the People," which were presented to the general and the Agitators of the eleven regiments. Religious Republicanism was abroad in the army, and they drew up a new constitution, at which a biennial Parliament, with six monthly sessions, a widely-extended franchise, and a more equally-distributed representation, was at the head. There were to be neither king nor lords in their system. Colonels Pride and Rainsborough supported their views: Cromwell and Ireton strenuously opposed them. They were, therefore, immediately the objects of attack, and represented as being in a close and secret compact with the king, the Ahab of the nation, to betray the people. Lilburne was busily employed in writing and printing violent denunciations in flaming style, and strongly garnished with Bible terms. Parliament denounced the doctrines of the Levellers as destructive of all government, and ordered the authors to be prosecuted.

Whilst this fanatic effervescence had broken out in the army, the Presbyterians in Parliament and the Scottish Commissioners made one effort more for the recovery of their ascendency. Regarding the religious toleration proposed in the army conditions as something horrible and monstrously wicked, they drew up fresh proposals of their own, and presented them to the king. If Charles could not endure the army proposals, he was not likely to accept those of the Presbyterians, who gave no place to his own Church at all; and he told them that he liked those of the army better. This answer Berkeley showed to the officers of the army before it was sent; they highly approved of it, and promised to do all they could in the House to get an order voted for a personal treaty, "and," Berkeley adds, "to my understanding, performed it, for both Cromwell and Ireton, with Vane and all their friends, seconded with great resolution this desire of his Majesty." Cromwell, indeed, he says, spoke so zealously in its favour that it only increased, both in the House and out of it, the suspicion of his having made a compact with the king to restore him. The more the officers argued for a personal treaty, the more the Presbyterians in the House opposed it; but at length a resolution was carried for it. It was thought that it would occupy twenty days, but it went on for two months, and came to nothing--other and strange events occurring.

The Levellers, after this display of zeal on the part of Cromwell, vowed that they would kill both him and the king, whom they not only styled an Ahab, a man of blood, and the everlasting obstacle to peace and liberty, but demanded his head as the cause of the murder of thousands of free-born Englishmen. Cromwell declared that his life was not safe in his own quarters, and we are assured that Lilburne and another Agitator named Wildman had agreed to assassinate him as a renegade and traitor to liberty. To check this wild and dangerous spirit in the army, Cromwell and Ireton recommended that it should be drawn closer together, and thus more under the immediate discipline of its chief officers. This was agreed upon, and a general rendezvous was appointed to take place at Ware on the 16th of November.

During the interval Charles was royally lodged at Hampton Court, and was freely permitted to have his children with him, but all the time he was at his usual work of plotting. The Marquis of Ormond, having surrendered his command in Ireland to the Parliament, was come hither; and Lord Capel, who had been one of Charles's most distinguished commanders, being also permitted by Parliament to return from abroad, a scheme was laid, whilst Charles was amusing the army and Parliament with the discussion of the "Proposals," that the next spring, through the Scottish Commissioners, who were also in the plot, a Scottish army should enter England forty thousand strong, and calling on the Presbyterians to join them should march forward. At the same time Ormond should lead an army from Ireland, whilst Capel summoned the rest of the king's friends in England to join the converging forces, and plant the king on the throne. But this wholesale conspiracy could not escape the secret agents of Cromwell; the whole was revealed to him, and he bitterly upbraided Ashburnham with the incurable duplicity of his master, who, whilst he was negotiating with the army, was planning its destruction.