CHAPTER X.

TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY OVER PARLIAMENT.

DEATH OF THE KING.

1647-1649.

Men must reap the things they sow;

Force from force must ever flow.

SHELLEY.

The ablest men that ever were, have had all an openness and

frankness of dealing, and a name of certainty and veracity.

Dissimulation is but a faint kind of policy or wisdom; it

commonly carries with it a show of fearfulness which in any

business doth spoil the feathers of sound flying up to the mark;

it depriveth a man of one of the most principal instruments for

action, which is trust and belief.--BACON, ESSAY, vi.

%VOTES AGAINST ARMY.%

The war was now at an end. Harlech Castle, in Wales, the last place

to hold out for the king, surrendered in April (1647). A committee

of Parliament sat daily at Goldsmith’s Hall, whither came Royalists

in numbers to compound for their estates; compounding being the

resignation of a part to avert the confiscation of the whole. Yet the

Presbyterians could have little pleasure in the submission of the

Royalists; what they yearned for was a triumph over the Independents.

In the Commons the Presbyterian majority was but small; and the hopes

they had built on the king had fallen through. The Earl of Essex,

their most respected leader, had been some months in the grave (ob.

14th Sept., 1646). The Scotch army had left the kingdom, and it was

hazardous for unarmed politicians to irritate an armed body of some

thirty thousand men. They had to rely on themselves, and they had

no genius for policy. The pay of the army was ten months in arrear.

♦Presbyterians pass votes for disbanding army.♦ The Presbyterians

proposed to pay a sixth of this sum and disband these dangerous

allies. Their proposal was carried by a bare majority of ten. Of

the few regiments who were excepted, some were to be despatched to

Ireland, others employed upon garrison duty at home (Feb. 19th).

They then passed a new self-denying ordinance to eliminate from the

army the Independent officers who were in the Commons, while they

required subscription of the covenant to eliminate those who were

not (8th March). A bare majority saved Fairfax from being cashiered

(5th March). In passing these votes, the Presbyterians had at once

attacked the soldier by an attempt to deprive him of his arrears; the

officer, by threatening to remove him from command; the sectarian,

by the imposition of the covenant, the first step to persecution. A

petition was drawn up by officers and soldiers, to be presented to

Fairfax, demanding that all arrears should be paid; that none should

be required to go to Ireland against their will; that provision should

be made for orphans and wounded; that an Act of Indemnity should be

passed to protect the soldiers from being called to account for any

past acts--crimes, perhaps, in the eye of the common law, but justified

by the necessities of war. The Presbyterians, still thinking themselves

masters of the situation, sent orders to Fairfax to suppress the

petition, and published a declaration, that whoever joined in it “was

an enemy to the State, and a disturber of the public peace” (20th

March). The army was in a ferment. “Have we,” said the soldiers, “who

have been the instruments to recover the lost liberties of the nation,

fought ourselves into slavery? Hard it is that we should be denied

the subject’s liberty to petition.”[137] Two councils were formed,

in communication with one another; the first of officers, the second

of ‘adjutators’ or representatives of the regiments.

♦Army petitions Parliament.♦ The officers addressed to Parliament a

vindication of their conduct, complaining of the treatment they had

received, and asserting that, by being soldiers, they had not lost

the subject’s capacity of petitioning (30th April). No sooner had

the Commons heard this paper read, than Skippon produced a second,

given him by three troopers, which declared the service in Ireland

“a perfidious design to separate the soldiers from the officers

they loved, and to conceal the ambition of a few men, who had long

been servants, but having lately tasted of sovereign power, were

degenerating into tyrants.” The Presbyterians fully understood at whom

these bold expressions were aimed. The three troopers were called in

and questioned. “Were your officers engaged in this letter, or not?”

“No; it was drawn up by the agents of eight regiments, and few of the

officers knew of it.” “Were you ever Cavaliers; for none but Cavaliers

would have been concerned in such a letter?” “No; we have been engaged

in the Parliament’s cause ever since Edgehill fight, and have been

wounded in several battles.” “What does that expression mean--‘certain

men aiming at sovereignty’?” “The letter being a joint act, we cannot

answer; but if you will put your question in writing, we will bring

you back the replies of the regiments.”[138] The Presbyterians were

at first inclined to pass some violent votes, but fear soon got the

better of anger, and they agreed to send down to head-quarters four of

the Independent officers, Cromwell, Ireton, Fleetwood, and Skippon,

with instructions to pacify the soldiers before disbanding, inquire

into grievances, and promise redress (7th May). They afterwards

increased their offer of pay by a miserable pittance (14th May), drew

up an ordinance for an amnesty (21st May), voted funds for widows and

orphans, and then, thinking they had granted enough to carry their

point, sent down Presbyterian commissioners to see the army disbanded

(22nd May).

♦Army refuses to disband.♦ The soldiers, however, mutinied instead of

disbanding, seized money intended for their pay, expelled officers they

mistrusted, and then demanded of Fairfax a general meeting of the army.

%MUTINY OF ARMY.%

A dangerous crisis had now arrived, when it was natural that both army

and Parliament should turn their thoughts upon the king as a possible

makeweight to one side or the other.

♦Charles carried off from Holmby.♦ At two o’clock in the morning of

the 3rd of June, a body of horse was discovered before the gates of

Holmby Castle. “Who commands?” anxiously inquired the Presbyterian

commissioners, entrusted by Parliament with the care of Charles. “All

command,” replied the strange troops; “we come from the army to secure

the king’s person, there being a plot to steal him away and raise

another army to suppress this, which is under Sir Thomas Fairfax.” No

attempt was made at resistance, for the soldiers of the garrison were

at one with the troopers.

%ARMY SEIZES CHARLES.%

The following evening, about ten o’clock, Cornet Joyce, the leader

of the party, holding a cocked pistol in his hand, went to the door

of the king’s chamber. “I am sorry,” he said, “to disquiet the king,

but cannot help it, for speak with him I will.” The gentlemen of the

bedchamber, not liking the look of the pistol, disputed his entrance,

until Charles, awakened by the noise, bade them let the intruder

in. After a long conversation, the king half promised to leave the

castle in his company. “Come, Mr. Joyce,” he said, the next morning,

standing on the castle steps, “deal ingenuously with me, and tell me

what commission you have.” “Here,” said the cornet, pointing with his

hand behind him to his mounted soldiers drawn up in the court below.

“As fair a commission,” replied the king, smiling, “as I ever saw in

my life; such a company of proper handsome men as I have not seen a

great while.” The king made a pretence of unwillingness to blind the

Presbyterian commissioners, but soon rode off with his new escort

to Cambridge, the merriest of the party.[139] It was clear that the

value of his support was rising; he might yet get his terms. Fairfax,

who was perfectly sincere, wishing neither to disband the army, nor

to quarrel with the Parliament, was displeased when he heard the

news.[140] “I don’t like it,” he said; “who gave the orders?” But none

of the officers owned to them. Ireton said he had ordered that the king

should be secured at Holmby, but not that he should be carried away.

Cromwell, who was much suspected by his Presbyterian fellow-members,

left London quietly one day, and joined the army in the eastern

counties. The Presbyterians, thoroughly depressed at the loss of their

prize, now passed a Bill of Indemnity, voted that some instalments of

the arrears should be paid down on disbanding, and once again sent down

commissioners to see the army disbanded.

♦Rendezvous at Triploe Heath.♦ At a rendezvous, held at Triploe Heath,

near Cambridge, the votes of the Parliament were read to the assembled

regiments. It was not likely they would disband now. The commissioners

received their answer in loud shouts of ‘Justice, justice!’ and that

same afternoon Cromwell and Fairfax set the army in motion for London

(10th June). Both Parliament and city had for some time past been

taking measures to oppose force by force. The command of the city

militia was taken from the Independents and given to a committee of

Presbyterians (4th May). Strong guards were set, the shops were shut,

and Presbyterian officers of Waller’s and Essex’ old armies crowded

to serve in the train-bands, which were largely recruited. But no one

really believed the city forces could stand an attack for a day. The

army meanwhile was approaching, and sent in its demands. The House was

required to give a month’s pay to the troops, without conditions, to

raise no new forces, and to suspend eleven of the leading Presbyterian

members, against whom an impeachment of treason was preferred, for

having caused a misunderstanding between the Parliament and the army

(16th, 17th June). The Commons granted a month’s pay, and reversed an

ordinance passed for raising new forces, but could not bring themselves

to turn out their own members. The army, however, still advanced.

It was at Uxbridge and Kingston-upon-Thames, within twenty miles of

the city, when the eleven members saved the pride of their friends

by asking leave to absent themselves for six months from the House

(26th June). The army, so far satisfied, withdrew from the immediate

neighbourhood of the city.

%COMMONS AGAINST ARMY.%

At this time, ‘settlement of the kingdom’ were the only words in men’s

mouths, the only hope in their hearts. No one perceived more clearly

than Cromwell how much a settlement was needed, nor how difficult it

would be to effect. Royalists, Republicans, Presbyterians, sectarians,

soldiers, reformers--what possible form of government was to harmonize

all these? The Royalists beaten, but numerous; the Republicans speaking

with calm contempt of the rule of kings; the Presbyterians regarding

the sectarians “as the most wicked men that breathed;” the army filled

with fanatics and revolutionists, demanding reform in the law, the

Church, and society. On one point alone was Cromwell’s mind at this

time fixed, that, as far as in his power lay, he would prevent any

settlement that did not provide for civil liberty and freedom of

conscience. And now the clouds seemed to break, and the sun again to

shine upon Charles; for the officers decided that the best way of

making a settlement, satisfactory to at least the larger part of the

nation, would be by restoring the king to some shadow of his former

power. At Holmby under the care of the Presbyterians, Charles, though

always civilly treated, had been deprived of the attendance of his

chaplains, forced to dismiss his favourite servants, and not allowed

to see his friends and children, or to correspond with his wife. But,

from the time of his arrival in the army’s quarters, he met with far

more liberal treatment. Four chaplains were permitted to attend him,

and perform the old Church of England service; the officers were his

frequent and respectful visitors; and his friends found ready access

to his presence. At the request of Fairfax, the Parliament allowed the

Duke of York, the Lady Elizabeth, and the Duke of Gloucester to visit

their father for two days. The meeting took place at Maidenhead; people

strewed flowers on the road, and the Republicans remembered afterwards

with horror that Cromwell, their hoped-for leader, came away shedding

tears, and saying that the interview between the king and his children

was one of the tenderest sights that ever his eyes beheld.

%ARMY PROPOSITIONS.%

The propositions now drawn up for the king’s acceptance by

commissioners from the Parliament and the army demanded that a period

should be put to the present Parliament within a year at most; that

new Parliaments should be elected every two years, and should appoint

standing committees to continue during the intervals; that the command

of the militia by sea and land should reside in Parliament for ten

years, and should not even then return to the crown, without the

consent of both Houses; that Parliament and its committees should

dispose of all great offices of State, and that peace and war should

not be made without their consent. Thus far these demands aimed at

transferring the executive power from king to Parliament in much the

same way as previous propositions, with the one exception of the

dissolution of the existing assembly, a measure specially dreaded by

the Presbyterians, because they had lost the confidence of the country.

But the propositions on religion and reform, which now emanated from

the Independents, were conceived in a very different spirit from those

which had been proposed by the Presbyterians. Instead of requiring the

king to abolish Episcopacy, establish the Presbyterian Church, and take

the covenant, they asked that an Act of Parliament should be passed,

repealing all laws which inflicted civil penalties for spiritual

offences. There was to be no privilege for covenant any more than

for Prayer-book; the sword of the persecutor was to be changed into

the harmless crook of the pastor. To the king’s friends they were as

merciful as they were to his conscience: with the exception of seven

persons, Royalists were to be allowed to compound for their estates at

easier rates, and their incapacity for office was to be limited to five

years. “There must,” said Ireton “be some distinction made between the

conquerors and the conquered.” Lastly, there were additional reforms

proposed, in which the popular instinct of the army showed to advantage

beside Presbyterians and Republicans, who cared more to gratify their

theories than to relieve the wants of the people. No man’s life was

to be taken away by less than two witnesses. The course of law was

to be reformed, so that suits might be more certain in their issues,

and costs not so great. Poor debtors were not to be kept in perpetual

imprisonment. The excise was to be taken off the necessaries of life.

Lastly, there was to be a redistribution of seats, giving more weight

in the Commons to the chief centres of population.

%ARMY PROPOSITIONS--KING’S CHANCE.%

These propositions, with which Ireton was chiefly credited, were by

far the most liberal towards all parties that had yet been brought

forward. But we must not suppose that the officers intended to trust

themselves or their friends to the generosity of Presbyterians and

Royalists. Not a word was said about disbanding the army. Had these

offers been accepted, Cromwell, as privy councillor, member of

Parliament, and general of a devoted army, would have stood by the

side of the throne, the controller of the king’s actions, and with

a sword to repel attacks on religious toleration or civil liberty.

Such a position was not what Charles held before the war; but it was

a tolerable position. The loss of the power of the sword was a great

loss; but Charles had put this question to the arbitrament of war, and

had been beaten. He could not hope to be trusted with the sword by

either Presbyterians or Independents. But the Independents offered him

great advantages. His religious convictions would be respected, and

if he could not resuscitate the glories of the Laudian hierarchy, he

at least escaped the establishment of the Presbyterian Church and the

subscription of the covenant. The treatment of himself and his friends

was liberal. Further, the Independents had the power to perform what

they promised, which the Presbyterians had not. They had not only the

army with them, but the country. Moreover, had Charles understood the

country which he ruled, he would have seen that two or three years of

real constitutional government, enforced or not, would have cleared off

the remains of his unpopularity, so that when the inevitable reaction

set in, the current would have carried him on the flood of popular

favour into much of his former dignity and power. But this was not to

be. Charles was, unfortunately, too astute to be wise. While outwardly

treating with the officers, he was secretly dealing with their enemies,

and as he wrote to his friends, “he was engaged either to Presbyterians

or Independents, and whichever bid most for him should have him.”[141]

He was, in fact, hoping for a new civil war, which might end in his own

restoration to absolute power.

%PARLIAMENT MOBBED BY PRESBYTERIANS.%

The impeachment of the eleven members not only cowed the Presbyterians,

but put them in an actual minority. But though they lost command of the

House, the city was still at their back, and when the Commons passed

an ordinance, giving the command of the train-bands to Independents,

London rose in tumult, and the citizens, flocking in crowds to

Skinners’ Hall, put their hands to an engagement to ‘endeavour the

king’s return to his Parliament with safety, honour, and freedom.’

Parliament passed a vote that all who joined in the engagement were

traitors. On this, a mob of apprentices, watermen, and officers

invaded the House with petitions for the restoration of the city

militia to its Presbyterian officers, and for the return of the eleven

members to their seats. Though the terrified Parliament yielded to

both these demands, their petitioners still barred the doors. “What

question,” said Lenthall, the speaker, “do you further desire to

be put?” “That the king be invited to come to London with safety,

honour, and freedom,” shouted the rabble. “No!” cried the Republican

Ludlow, at the top of his voice. The question, however, being put to

the vote, was carried, in the midst of general noise and confusion,

and Lenthall, at last released from his chair and hustled downstairs

by the mob, was thankful to escape into the first coach he could

find (26th July). On hearing of this adverse vote, the indignation

of both officers and soldiers turned upon the king. They knew, or

believed, that he had been at the bottom of the rising. “Sire,” said

Ireton, “you intend to be arbitrator between the Parliament and us,

and we intend to be so between your Majesty and the Parliament.”

♦King rejects army propositions.♦ The Army Propositions were presented

to him notwithstanding. To these Charles’ refusal was so defiant,

that it made his own friends stand aghast when they heard it. First

alluding to the exclusion of seven Royalists from the amnesty, “I

will have no man suffer for my sake,” he said. “I repent of nothing

so much as that I passed the bill against the Earl of Strafford.” He

then added, that he wished Episcopacy to be established by law; and

repeated several times over, “You cannot be without me; you will fall

to ruin if I do not sustain you.” Enraged with king and Presbyterians

alike, the officers and soldiers marched on the capital, to teach the

citizens to recognize their masters; on the way, at Hounslow Heath,

they met the speaker, accompanied by a hundred members of the Lower

House and fourteen of the Upper, who in disgust at the violence offered

them, sought refuge with the army (30th July). Meanwhile in London the

shops were again shut, the drums beat, and new troops enlisted in the

train-bands. But the hearts of the citizens began to fail them when

they heard the army had already reached Hounslow Heath, and was still

continuing its advance, after receiving the fugitive members with

shouts of joy (3rd Aug.). If a scout reported a halt of the army, the

word in London was, “One and all; live and die;” if an advance, the cry

was, “Treat, treat, treat.” The Borough of Southwark refused to fight,

and the Lord Mayor and City Council finally wrote to Fairfax that they

quite concurred with him in wishing to restore the fugitive members.

Thus the king’s hopes were disappointed: all passed over without a

blow; the eleven Presbyterian members fled a second time; the fugitive

Republicans and Independents retook their seats (6th Aug.), and the

whole army marched in triumph through London (8th Aug.).

%ARMY MARCHES ON LONDON.%

Cromwell, however, was aware that at least two-thirds of the nation

still desired the king’s restoration. He, therefore, continued to

treat with Charles. It was doubtful, however, whether it was any

longer in his power to conclude a treaty, even if Charles would have

made the required concessions. The distrust that had always prevailed

of the king’s good faith, had deepened into an absolute certainty.

♦Republicans, sectarians, Levellers, refuse to treat any longer with

king.♦ Republicans and sectarians had from the first disliked holding

dealings with a man they regarded as the “chief delinquent, guilty of

all the blood shed in the war,” and now finding themselves absolute

masters of city, Parliament, and king, they were far from thinking of

allowing Charles any shadow of power. On seeing that Cromwell continued

to treat, they openly talked of the “baseness of those who would for

the sake of honours and office desert a noble cause, and a second

time enslave the people.” A report was soon credited in the army that

Cromwell had been promised the command-in-chief of the king’s armies

with the title of Earl of Essex, and Ireton the government of Ireland,

as the price of betraying their cause and their friends. The army had,

in fact, been leavened by a new class of reformers, who had won over

to their opinions a majority of both soldiers and officers. These

reformers were nicknamed Levellers, being rather pure Democrats than

Republicans. They disliked the House of Lords as much as the king, and

their aim was equality of ranks and abolition of all class privileges

before the law. Their leader, John Lilburne, who began life by defying

the Court of Star Chamber,[142] tried to stir the soldiers to mutiny

against the generals. Cromwell knew that divisions in the army would

only pave the way for the triumph of Presbyterians and Royalists. In

that event his cherished cause, ‘Liberty of conscience,’ would be lost.

He therefore determined on making his peace with his old friends, and

giving up the attempt to effect a settlement by restoring Charles to

the throne. In this he was perfectly justified, for there was no doubt

that the king was acting insincerely towards the officers. “I shall

play my game as well as I can,” Charles said, in one of his sanguine

moments. “If your Majesty have a game to play,” replied Ireton, “you

must give us also liberty to play ours.” All this time Charles was

placing his faith in the Scots, who, finding that the Independent army

was not, after all, disbanded, nor the king restored to his throne,

began to use menacing language, and to threaten an invasion of England.

So well was Cromwell aware of the whole thread of the king’s policy,

that he told the royalist, Berkley, “he had in his own possession

letters which showed that the king had commanded all his party to serve

under the Parliament and the city, and that he had at that instant,

when he made greatest profession to close with the army, a treaty with

the Scots, which did very much justify the general misfortune he lived

under of having the reputation of little faith in his dealings.”[143]

%FLIGHT OF CHARLES.%

Charles, who was residing at Hampton Court, found his position altered;

his movements were more restrained; his friends were shut out from

his presence, and anonymous letters reached his hands, warning him

that his life was in danger. Accompanied only by a servant and two

friends, Berkley and Ashburnham, he fled from Hampton Court one dark

stormy evening, and after riding hard all night arrived early the next

morning at the coast opposite the Isle of Wight (12th Nov.). Here,

taking refuge the while in a neighbouring house, he sent Berkley and

Ashburnham over to the island with instructions to extract from the

governor, Hammond, a promise to grant his Majesty means of conduct to

a place of safety. Hammond turned pale, and at first, in terror at the

news, begged that the king might not be brought to the island, for

“what between his duty to the king and his trust to the army, he should

be confounded.” But he soon changed his mind, and became anxious to

know where the king was to be found. “I will promise to perform,” he

said, “whatever can be expected of a person of honour and honesty.”

Though little confidence could be placed in such a vague expression of

good-will, Ashburnham and Berkley, not knowing how to rid themselves

of the governor’s company, undertook to conduct him and one other

man, Captain Basket, to the royal presence. “Oh, you have undone me!”

exclaimed Charles, when he heard that they had brought Hammond with

them, “for I am by this means made fast from stirring.” “Since what has

been done does not please your Majesty,” replied Ashburnham in tears,

“I will kill the governor and the captain with my own hands.” Charles

took two or three turns up and down the room. “No,” he replied; “it

would be said that he ventured his life for me, and I took it away from

him. We must go through with it now.” Arrived at Carisbrooke, Charles

felt in better spirits. Hammond treated him courteously; gentlemen came

to visit him, and being left at liberty to ride over the island he did

not doubt of being able at any time to escape across the Channel.

Cromwell has been accused of having purposely frightened Charles away

from Hampton Court, with the intention of getting him more completely

into the power of the army. He certainly wrote a note to Colonel

Whalley, bidding him have a care of his guards, for “if any attempt

should be made upon his Majesty’s person, it would be accounted a most

horrid act.” He was also the first to hear from Whalley of the king’s

escape, and reported the news to Parliament. But this evidence does

not seem strong enough to support the conclusion drawn from it. Many

of the Levellers were so unscrupulous that the rumours of an intended

assassination were not likely to be without foundation. Cromwell’s

note, therefore, may have been intended simply as a caution to Whalley.

Further, Cromwell could not have foreseen that the fugitives would

seek refuge in the Isle of Wight; in fact, when there the king was not

more but less in the power of the army than before. At Hampton Court,

his keeper was Whalley, who was throughout on the side of the army,

and was afterwards one of his judges; whereas in the Isle of Wight he

was under Hammond, who disapproved of the dealings of the army with

the Parliament, and was afterwards removed from his post to make place

for a surer man. Had he, on the other hand, escaped into Scotland, he

would undoubtedly have soon been again in England at the head of an

army, and Royalists by thousands been flocking to his standard. The

obvious conclusion is that if Cromwell connived at the flight from

Hampton Court, his desire can only have been to save Charles’ life from

the assassin’s dagger, and to give him a chance of escape across the

Channel.

%MUTINY OF LEVELLERS.%

Cromwell had incurred unpopularity with the army by being too

favourable to the king, and now had to turn his mind to the suppression

of the mutinous spirit that had appeared amongst the soldiers.

Different regiments of the army were ordered to attend him at three

several meetings. To the first meeting, held between Hertford and Ware,

only three regiments were summoned. But when Fairfax and Cromwell

arrived on the ground, they found that Robert Lilburne’s regiment of

infantry and Colonel Harrison’s regiment of cavalry had come without

orders. The soldiers, most of whom were Levellers, were in a state

of great excitement, and had fixed to their hats copies of one of

Lilburne’s pamphlets, entitled ‘The Agreement of the People.’ Fairfax

read a remonstrance to the quieter regiments, reminding them of the

good faith their chiefs had always shown them, and promising that he

would support the demands of the soldiers, if they would obey the

orders of their officers. This appeal to the soldiers’ feelings was

answered by shouts of approval. Even Harrison’s troopers, on hearing

the address, tore the copies of the ‘Agreement’ from their hats,

declaring that they had been deceived, and would live and die with

their general. But Lilburne’s regiment showed no signs of submission.

“Take that paper from your hats!” cried Cromwell; and when none obeyed,

riding with drawn sword into the ranks, he ordered fourteen of the

leading mutineers to be arrested. Old habits of discipline in the

soldier, the commanding voice and gesture of the officer, produced

obedience. A court-martial was held on the spot, and, out of three

condemned, one soldier was shot to death in front of the regiment (Nov.

15th). The two following meetings went off quietly.

%CROMWELL SUPPRESSES MUTINY.%

Yet, though he had overawed them for the moment, Cromwell knew that

these soldiers held the destinies of England in their hands, and that,

if he would be their master and stay their hands from havoc, he must

first regain their confidence. Several meetings were held between

officers and adjutators, at which he and the officers admitted that the

treaty with the king, entered into ‘through the fear of man and want of

a spirit of faith, had become a cause of division, to the danger of the

blessed cause in which the army was engaged.’ In thus speaking it is

not to be supposed that Cromwell and his officers were acting the parts

of knaves and hypocrites. It was an undeniable fact that, in treating

with Charles, they had taken a wrong road to effect a settlement which

would secure religious toleration and civil liberty. Charles had

deceived them; he had not only stirred up the city against them, but

now at his summons a Scotch army was about to invade the country, while

Royalists were preparing to rise. In the divisions that had ensued

amongst themselves, in the dangers that now threatened them, they

recognized a judgment of God on their own backslidings. The conferences

concluded with “a very clear and joint resolution, on many grounds at

large there debated amongst us, that it was our duty, if ever the Lord

brought us back again in peace, to call Charles Stuart, that man of

blood, to an account for that blood he had shed and mischief he had

done to his utmost against the Lord’s cause and people in these poor

nations.”[144]

%CHARLES’ TREATY WITH SCOTS.%

While this was the final resolution of the army, the Presbyterians in

Parliament carried a vote that, if the king gave his consent to four

bills, granting the command of the militia to the Parliament, and

revoking his declarations of treason against the two Houses, he should

be allowed to come to London and treat in person (Dec. 14th).

♦Charles’ secret treaty with Scots.♦ Charles, however, rejected the

bills; for about the same time that they were presented, commissioners

came from Scotland to Carisbrooke, and concluded a treaty with him on

easier terms then had ever yet been proposed. It was agreed that a

Scotch army should enter the kingdom in the ensuing spring; that the

Cavaliers should rise at the same time; that the Presbyterian Church

should be established in England for three years; and that the king

should not be required to take the covenant or conform to the public

worship (26th Dec.). The papers containing the terms were carefully

closed up in lead, and concealed in a private house, for it would have

been fatal to the king’s character had their contents become known

to the English Parliament. Charles, however, had, unfortunately, but

little character for honesty left with either party. Both Parliament

and army knew he had made a secret agreement with the Scots, and

ascribed his rejection of the four bills to its true cause (27th Dec.).

Having delayed to escape until he had concluded the treaty with the

Scots, Charles found that the opportunity was gone; his guards were

doubled, his friends dismissed, and his walks confined to a small

garden.

♦Republicans propose dethronement.♦ The Republicans seized the

advantage offered them by the rejection of the bills to venture on the

boldest step they had yet taken; they openly proposed, in Parliament,

to exclude the king from the throne. “Mr. Speaker,” said Sir Thomas

Wroth, “Bedlam was appointed for madmen, and Tophet for kings; but

our kings of late have carried themselves as if they were fit for no

place but Bedlam. I propose we lay the king by, and settle the kingdom

without him. I care not what form of government you set up, so it be

not by kings or devils.”

%CROMWELL FORESEES REACTION.%

After a warm debate, the Presbyterians were beaten, and a resolution

was carried by 141 votes against 92, that no more addresses should be

made to the king by any person whatsoever, without consent of both

Houses, under penalties of high treason (3rd Jan., 1648). Yet, in

spite of this success within Parliament House, outside there were many

signs of disaffection, which boded but a stormy birth for the young

Republic. An invasion from Scotland was expected; the city was slow

to lend money to pay the army, and hated the Parliament ever since

the exclusion of the eleven Presbyterian members; the country people

were clamouring against the taxes and calling for the restoration of

the king. Cromwell, hoping at least to effect cordial co-operation

between the friends of a common cause, brought together the ‘Parliament

grandees’ and the ‘army grandees’ at a dinner at his own house.

He there stated, as his own opinion, that either a monarchical,

aristocratical, or democratical government might be good in themselves,

or good for England, according to the directions of Providence. The

Republicans disputed both points. God, they said, had charged upon the

Israelites their choice of Saul as a rejection of Himself; therefore,

monarchy could not be good in itself, any more than it could be good

for England, to which it had been the main source of oppression. “It

is our duty,” they said, “to call the king to account for the blood

that has been shed, and then to establish a commonwealth, founded upon

the consent of the people, so that it may have their hearts and hands

in its support.” Cromwell, being pressed by Ludlow to declare himself

plainly for or against a republic, flung a cushion at his questioner’s

head, and ran downstairs, to give some vent to the irritation he was

obliged to suppress. Fools to talk of founding a republic, with the

consent of the nation! when against it were not Royalists only, but

Presbyterians and thousands of honest men who had taken arms against

the king, not to abolish kingship, but to ensure their own liberties.

“I see,” he said to Ludlow the next day, “that it is desirable, but not

that it is possible;” whereupon Ludlow angrily left him, suspicious of

his intentions. For these Republicans had now become so deeply imbued

with the idea that the only way to ensure England’s liberties was by

founding a commonwealth without king or House of Lords, that they

disbelieved in the honesty of every one who doubted the efficacy of the

nostrum.

But the storm, which Cromwell had foreseen, now burst, and the presence

of a common foe made Levellers, Republicans, and army officers unite

again. Great excitement had prevailed throughout the country since the

vote passed against making further addresses to the king. Reverence for

their country’s past combined with pity for their fallen monarch. Bands

of the City militia would patrol the streets, stop coaches, and force

their occupants to drink the king’s health. Some apprentices, playing

at bowls in Moorfields one Sunday, drove off a body of soldiers who

would have stopped their game, and then marched to the City, raising

the cry of ‘God and King Charles!’ Joined on their way by thousands

of sympathizers, they broke open an arsenal, placed chains across the

streets, and remained masters of the City till the following morning

(April 13th).

In the country similar scenes were witnessed. In defiance of the

soldiers, tumultuous crowds of country people assembled to raise

the forbidden maypole, and were seldom dispersed without bloodshed.

Rebellion followed tumult. The knowledge that the Scots were coming

to deliver the king from prison raised the drooping spirits of

the Cavaliers. In Wales, in Kent, in Essex, in Hertfordshire, in

Nottinghamshire, in Cornwall, in the western counties, the royal

standard was unfurled. The same reaction extended to the navy.

Seventeen ships of war sailed to Holland and offered their services to

the Prince of Wales. But the army had generals who were not slow to

act, and troops such as the raw levies of the Cavaliers could not long

resist. Cromwell soon triumphed in the west, and forced the Royalists

to take refuge in Pembroke Castle (May). In the counties round London,

after a fortnight’s fighting, little remained of the royal forces, and

this little was besieged by Fairfax in Colchester (June).

%SCOTCH PARTIES--HAMILTON’S INVASION.%

There was serious danger, however, yet to come. Scotland, at this time,

was a country divided against itself. The Covenanters had split into

two parties. The first, headed by the Duke of Argyle, and supported by

the Church Assembly, were indignant at the terms of the treaty their

commissioners had made in the Isle of Wight. A war to replace a king

who refused the Covenant seemed at once treason to their religion and

a breach of their treaty with the English Parliament. The second, or

moderate party, under the Duke of Hamilton, were ready to forgive

any shortcomings of the king sooner than see Independents triumph

over Presbyterians. In defence of the war they could argue, not

without truth, that the purpose of their solemn league and covenant

had been to establish the Presbyterian Church in England, and secure

constitutional rule, and not to enable Republicans and sectarians to

overthrow monarchy and secure liberty of conscience. The moderate

party was strongest in the Scottish Parliament, and, in spite of the

opposition of the Church Assembly, a vote had been passed to raise an

army of 40,000 men to fight in defence of the Covenant and of the king.

The service, however, was not popular. Under Hamilton’s command some

20,000 came straggling into England, followed by the curses of the

extreme Covenanters. Fairfax being before Colchester, Cromwell before

Pembroke, the invaders marched loosely and confidently. On the 16th

of August, Hamilton, with the main body of his army, was at Preston;

his horse at Wigan, more than ten miles in advance; his rear straggling

another ten miles behind. At Langridge, about four miles to the east,

up the northern bank of the Ribble, was Sir Marmaduke Langdale and a

body of 3000 English Cavaliers. But security is not safety. Further

east, another four or five miles up the same stream, at Stonyhurst

and Clitheroe, was Cromwell, with an army of nearly 9000 men, a fact

of which Duke Hamilton lay in complete ignorance. Pembroke had, in

fact, surrendered just in time to allow the Ironsides to hasten north

by forced marches, and meet the new enemy before he had advanced far

into Lancashire. In the morning Cromwell descended the stream of the

Ribble on the northern bank, and attacked the Cavaliers at Langridge.

Hamilton, believing the enemy to be merely some small body of

Yorkshiremen, sent no reinforcements to Langdale, who, after a gallant

resistance and four hours’ hard fighting, was driven back from hedge to

hedge into Preston town, the enemy following close at his heels, and

charging through the streets. While the Cavaliers were fighting, the

main body of the Scots had been making their way in happy ignorance to

the south side of the Ribble, intending to follow their horse. While in

this plight, Cromwell fell upon them and drove them off Ribble bridge

before their rear had crossed. The troops thus left on the north bank

of the river were cut to pieces, and chased to Lancaster with terrible

loss (Aug. 17th).

[Illustration: MAP OF LANCASHIRE.]

South of the Ribble, Hamilton held a council of war. Most of his

officers were for pushing on the same night to Wigan, where they

expected to find their horse. “But what,” said others, “will become of

our unfortunate ammunition, since forward with us we cannot get it?”

“It shall be blown up by a train,” said the duke. But, in the hurry and

confusion of a retreat by night, it was not blown up, and the whole

fell into the hands of Cromwell. The next morning (Aug. 18th), after

this “drumless march,” the Scots found themselves at Wigan Moor, weary

in body and depressed in spirit, for weather was wet and ways were

bad, and the twenty thousand had dwindled to ten. The officers agreed

to push the retreat on to Warrington, another ten miles south, where

they hoped to take up a strong defensive position, and dispute the

passage of the enemy at the bridge over the Mersey. But before their

rear, which did not begin its march until the evening, was through

Wigan, Cromwell was upon them. In the market-place the moon cast dim

light upon a scene of inextricable confusion. The Ironsides charged

the Scots’ rear; the Scots’ horse dashed headlong onwards, and were

received on the pikes of their own infantry, who cried out, “These are

Cromwell’s men!” They charged, however, so fiercely that the pikemen

threw down their weapons and fled for refuge to the nearest houses. The

same mistakes were repeated. “After this,” says one who was present,

“all the horse galloped away, and, as I was told afterwards, rode not

through, but over our whole foot.” Such were the scenes of the night.

In the morning (Aug. 19th), at a place called Redbank, two miles

outside Warrington, a body of pikemen took advantage of a favourable

position to face about, and dispute the ground with the enemy. After

several hours’ hard fighting, driven back at push of pike, they entered

Warrington in company with their pursuers, and pressed on to the bridge

over the Mersey, which was already held by their friends, and strongly

barricaded. Here, however, the three days’ battle ended. Hamilton

and the horse had made off some time before, sending word to the

lieutenant-general of the foot to make as good conditions for himself

as he could. Officers and soldiers yielded themselves prisoners of war,

being promised their lives and civil usage. Hamilton and his horse were

caught in Staffordshire. Thus, as Cromwell wrote to the Parliament,

did an army of 8600 men shatter and dissipate another of at least

21,000. Two thousand Scots were slain, and eight or nine thousand more

made prisoners, without counting those destroyed or brought in by the

country people[145] (August 17, 18, 19).

%CROMWELL IN SCOTLAND.%

Cromwell, after his victory, marched with his army into Scotland,

where the extreme Covenanters had risen in arms against the friends

of Hamilton’s invasion. A peace was effected by his influence (Sept.

28th). The Engagers, the name given to those who served under Hamilton,

were disqualified from serving in any public employment, but were left

in possession of their property, on condition of disbanding their

forces and renewing their allegiance to the Covenant. The government

was thus left entirely in the hands of Argyle and other opponents of

the late war.

A few days after Cromwell’s victory over the Scots in Lancashire,

Fairfax brought the war to a close in the south. Subdued by famine, the

gentlemen and officers shut up in Colchester surrendered at discretion,

the soldiers upon promise of quarter (Aug. 27th). Three of the garrison

were condemned by a council of war to be shot. “It is necessary,”

Ireton is reported to have said, “for the example of others, and to

prevent the peace of the kingdom from being disturbed in this way

again, that some should suffer.” Fairfax, though always inclined to the

side of mercy, agreed with Ireton. One, a foreigner, he reprieved; the

other two, who had both broken their word of honour not to bear arms

against the Parliament, were executed.

While the generals were engaged in fighting Royalists and Scots,

the Presbyterians in London, taking advantage of the absence of

many Independent members with the army, were doing their utmost to

ruin the cause of civil and religious liberty. There were, without

doubt, many members of the Parliament who would sooner have seen

victory on the side of the Scots than of the Independents. In the

Upper House this party was in a majority, so that when the Commons

voted that all Englishmen who should abet the invaders were traitors,

the Lords actually refused to concur in the vote (July 18th). A

persecuting ordinance was fulminated against sectarians (p. 203).

The eleven Presbyterian members were recalled to their seats (June).

The Presbyterian major-general, Huntingdon, presented to Parliament

a paper, modestly entitled, ‘Sundry Reasons inducing him to lay down

his Commission,’ but really containing charges against his commander,

which, in the event of the Scots’ success, might have served to

cost Cromwell his head. Even those Presbyterians whose feelings of

nationality were too strong to suffer them to wish success to the

invaders, were yet most eager to conclude a treaty with the king, and

thereby sacrifice the cause for which the English armies were fighting.

The vote of the 3rd of January, forbidding any addresses to be made to

the king, under penalties of treason, was now rescinded (June 30th),

and, after some time had passed in preliminaries, fifteen commissioners

were sent to negotiate the terms of a treaty with Charles at Newport

(Sept. 13th).

%PARLIAMENT UNPOPULAR.%

The Parliament had now exercised supreme power since the breaking

out of the war in the year ’41. Once looked upon as the saviour of

the nation’s liberties, it was now hated and despised. The causes of

this were manifold. In the first place, however able and honest were

some of its members, it had, as a body, been subjected to violence,

and had sacrificed all consistency, voting one day to please the

soldiers, another to please a City mob. A former Royalist member justly

reproaches them with “voting of members in and out so often; voting

there shall be no more addresses to the king, and then voting that

there shall--a temper something like that of Henry VIII., who advanced

men in a good humour he knew not why, and ruined them again in another

he knew not why.”[146]

%TRIAL OF LILBURNE.%

A second cause that brought the Parliament into disfavour with the

people, was that both Houses of Parliament constantly trespassed on the

liberties of the people by fining and imprisoning political offenders,

under the pretence of breach of privilege, without showing legal cause

or bringing the victims to trial. Yet the House of Lords, except in

cases of impeachment or appeals from inferior courts, possessed an

undisputed jurisdiction only over peers; while the House of Commons

possessed no judicial power at all, except in disputed elections and

in cases of interference with the free action of members. Lilburne

had already signalized himself by attacking the encroachments thus

made upon the liberties of the people. He had been committed to prison

by order of the Lords (July, 1646), and it was two years before he

succeeded in obtaining from the judges of the King’s Bench his writ

of ‘habeas corpus.’ It was not to be expected that in time of war a

troublesome agitator should meet with other than summary treatment.

Lilburne had attacked one of the two Houses under which he served,

and, when imprisoned for this, had been writing pamphlets exciting

the soldiers to mutiny. In such a case, a temporary suspension of the

subject’s right to a ‘habeas corpus’ was necessary and justifiable.

It probably, however, did the Parliament quite as much injury as

if the man had been left at liberty. A revolutionary government,

though surrounded by enemies, and with none of the prestige of an

old-established régime to protect it, is none the less expected to

show a far greater regard to the liberties of the subject than the

government it has displaced. So now crowds of sympathizing spectators

thronged the court when Lilburne demanded his liberty on the ground

that the Lords acted illegally in calling any but peers to the bar of

their House. The judges, however, supported the jurisdiction of the

Lords, and refused to grant Lilburne his release, on the ground that he

had been committed by a superior court. Notwithstanding the decision of

the judges, abuse of privilege was a real blot on the administration:

so was also the subservience the Parliament had shown.

%FINANCIAL OPPRESSION.%

There can be no doubt, however, that what ruined the government in the

opinion of the country at large was the bad financial administration.

The other causes touched the men who thought and the men who felt; but

this weighed with the average men who did not either think much or

feel much. Such men are four out of five in any community. As a rule

they follow their leaders, but in England, if their pockets are once

touched, they take a course of their own. These men the Parliament had

alienated by bad finance. Properly administered, the revenue would

have been more than sufficient to meet the expenditure. Its sources

were numerous--the excise, the customs, the monthly assessment on

land and goods, the compositions made by Royalists, and the seizure

and sale of bishops’ lands, crown lands, and the estates of those

who preferred poverty and exile to having any dealings with rebels.

But the machinery for collection was both oppressive and expensive.

There was a bureaucracy of the worst kind, for the counties were

put in the hands of committees, who levied the taxes, looked after

Royalists’ estates, and secured obedience to the government. It was

said, indeed, that one half of the revenue was devoured by these

committees and their officials. Large sums of money were lavishly

granted by the Parliament to its adherents, sometimes as rewards for

services, sometimes as payments of loans, borrowed at a high interest

during the war. Adventurers who had joined the side of the Parliament

as a paying speculation, succeeded in their object, making large

fortunes either as members of Parliament or as members of county

committees. Colonel Birch, a merchant of Bristol, who had abandoned

his business as unprofitable, and enlisted in the Parliament’s army,

was granted at different times the sums of £1500, £800, and £4900, and

in the year 1650 had so much spare capital that he bought bishops’

lands to the value of £2000. While these liberal gifts were made,

the pay of the soldiers was left in arrear. To meet the deficit,

heavy extra impositions were laid on the country. Thus, in 1647, the

people in many parts of Radnor, though they had already paid their

six months’ contribution, were required to raise an additional rate

of three shillings for each foot soldier quartered amongst them.

During the war Fairfax exacted from the city of Bath £90,000 in six

months, in addition to twelve months’ pay, which had been previously

granted. Thus, while men connected with the government grew rich, the

tradespeople in garrison towns were being gradually reduced to beggary,

and the country people in some places were almost starving. “Amazing,”

says Lilburne in one of his pamphlets, “that so many men in Parliament,

and their associates elsewhere, who pride themselves as the only saints

and godly men upon earth, and have large possessions of their own, can

take yearly salaries of £1000, £3000, £6000.”[147]

%PARTIES IN COMMONS.%

From these various causes the House of Commons was unpopular. It

was also divided against itself. It contained three chief political

parties. First, the Presbyterians, eager to recover their former

ascendancy by making a treaty with the king; secondly, the Republicans,

who aimed at getting rid of king and House of Lords; thirdly,

Independents, still true to the cause of liberty of conscience:

besides these were the lawyers and the waverers, who voted with the

Republicans, either through dread of Presbyterian ascendancy, or

because, after long enjoying the sweets of power, they were loath

to see the present Parliament dissolved. Outside the Commons’ House

was an army of between 20,000 and 30,000 men, at this time the real

power in the land. The officers’ views of settlement differed from

those of the Republicans principally in the following point, that

while the Republicans wished the army to act as an obedient servant in

establishing their Republican ideal, the officers cared little about

the form of the civil power as long as it carried out their own views

of reform. The two parties, however, were closely allied, and, in fact,

intermingled. A standing army had never before been known in England,

and was as little loved by the people as the perpetual Parliament

itself. Thus the officers, unable to rule in their own names, hoped

to rule by coalescing with the Republicans. The Republicans, in their

anxiety to found their own form of government, mistook the character

and aims of their only and necessary supporters. The ranks of the army

were really filled with sectarians and Levellers. The reforms these

demanded were not theoretical, but practical and popular--the abolition

of imprisonment for debt, the lessening of lawyers’ fees, an adjustment

of seats to population, the meeting of new parliaments every year, and

the reform of the Church.

A Leveller has given us a picture of a meeting of officers,

Republicans, Independents, and some of his own party, held during the

autumn months, while the Presbyterians were treating with the king.

“We intend,” said the officers, “to cut off the king’s head, and purge,

if not dissolve, the Parliament.” “We know,” replied Lilburne, as the

spokesman of the Levellers, “that the king is a bad man, but the army

deceived us last year, and is not to be trusted. It is our interest

to keep up one tyrant against the other, until we can know which

tyrant will give more freedom. For we do not wish the government to

develop into the wills and swords of the army, and we [be] dealt with

as the slavish peasants of France, who can call nothing their own.

An agreement must be drawn up before anything else is done.” “There

is no time,” objected an officer; “the treaty between the king and

the Parliament will be concluded, and then you will be destroyed as

well as we.” “We must dissolve the Parliament,” said Ireton for the

officers, “for how else are we to get rid of it? It will never dissolve

itself.” On the other hand, Republican and Independent members of the

House opposed a dissolution, thinking a purge of their Presbyterian

companions a far more desirable remedy, and by no means objecting to

concentrating all civil power in their own hands.

%NEGOTIATIONS AT NEWPORT.%

When such were the counsels of the men in power, the negotiations

begun at Newport in September appear little better than a farce.

There Charles was himself receiving, disputing, and answering the

propositions of the Parliament, which were the same as those offered

at Newcastle. Two of the commissioners on their knees implored him to

waste no time, but to grant on the first day all that he could on the

last. It probably mattered less than they thought whether he yielded

on the first or last day, for where in either case was to be found

the means to resist the will of the army, which was opposed to all

compromise? At last, after protracting the negotiations over six weeks,

Charles agreed to grant to Parliament the command of the militia and

the government of Ireland for twenty years; to suspend the power of

bishops for three years, until a form of Church government should be

agreed upon by himself and the two Houses; and to allow seven of his

friends to be excepted from pardon. How far, however, he was sincere in

making these concessions may be judged from his own letters. “Be not

startled,” he wrote to Ormond, “at my great concessions about Ireland,

for that they will come to nothing.”

For some time past Charles’ mind had been occupied with thoughts of

escape. He was beginning at last to realize that it was possible for

subjects to take the life of an anointed king. Still he hardly dared

leave the country without first obtaining the consent of his wife.

The Prince of Wales might have sailed from Holland with the revolted

ships to attempt his father’s release, but he made no effort. One day

Charles told Sir John Bowring, who frequently pressed him to escape,

that he had received a letter from beyond seas, advising him not to go

out of the island, for it was not in the power of the army to touch a

hair of his head. “So,” he continued, “as I have made concessions, and

the treaty has had a fair end, and especially since I have received

this advice (you guess from whence it comes), I am resolved to stay

here, and God’s will be done.” It was in fact his wife’s will which

was still to be done, till her fatal influence had finally ruined him.

The will of the army was soon shown. Regiment after regiment presented

petitions to Fairfax demanding ‘that the same fault may have the same

punishment in a king or lord as in the poorest commoner.’ A united

Army Remonstrance was read in Parliament, requiring the House to set

aside the treaty and ‘proceed against the king in a way of justice.’

By a majority of ninety, the Commons decided not to take the Army

Remonstrance into consideration.

%CHARLES AT HURST CASTLE.%

On the 2nd of December they were debating whether the king’s

concessions were sufficient to serve as a basis of peace. Meanwhile the

soldiers were taking up their quarters in the City, and Fairfax was

establishing himself at Whitehall. “The debate ought to be laid aside,”

said Prynne, “until we are a free Parliament. Our debates cannot be

with liberty now we are environed by the army.” On Monday (Dec. 4th)

the news came that Charles had been carried off by a party of soldiers

from Carisbrooke to Hurst Castle, a gloomy fortress on the Hampshire

coast. The Presbyterians, more indignant than alarmed, declared the

honour of Parliament at stake, for it had voted that the king should

treat in honour, safety, and freedom. Prynne appeared as the King’s

champion, so vastly had times changed within the last eight years. “Mr.

Speaker,” he said, “all the royal favour I ever yet received from his

Majesty was the slitting off my ears in a most barbarous manner; the

setting me upon three several pillories for two hours at a time; the

burning of my books by the hand of the hangman; the imposing two fines

upon me of £5000 a piece; expulsion from the University of Oxford;

above eight years’ imprisonment without pens, ink, paper, or books

except my Bible. If any member envy me for such royal favour, I only

wish him the same badges of favour, and then he will no more asperse

me for a royal favourite or apostate from the public cause.” For hours

he continued speaking, showing that there was no danger to liberty

in accepting the king’s concessions, and calling on the House not to

sacrifice its freedom to fear of the army. “If the king and we shall

happily close upon this treaty, I hope we shall have not such great

need of their future service; however, _fiat justitia, ruat cœlum_--let

us do our duty and leave the issue to God.”

%PRIDE’S PURGE.%

It was five o’clock on Tuesday morning before the House divided, when

a resolution was carried by 140 to 104, that the answers of the king

were a sufficient ground to proceed upon for a settlement of the

kingdom. The next day (6th Dec.) was memorable as that of Pride’s

Purge. A party of officers, headed by Ireton, had determined to put an

end to what they considered Presbyterian dictation. Cromwell was on

his way from Scotland, and did not reach London till the next day; and

Fairfax was in ignorance of the designs of his officers. But by seven

o’clock in the morning every approach to the Commons’ House was barred

by soldiers. At the door stood their officer, Colonel Pride, with a

list of the proscribed in his hand. When a leading Presbyterian came

up the staircase, Lord Grey of Groby pointed him out to Pride, and if

the member refused to go away of his own accord, the soldiers forced

him down the staircase. Forty Presbyterians were thus excluded, while

several others were frightened and kept away of themselves. As the

House refused to proceed to business until its absent members should be

restored, the next morning the same scene was repeated, and forty more

members were excluded (Dec. 7). A minority of twenty-six withdrew of

their own accord; the remainder, nicknamed the Rump, formed a House of

fifty-three members, all bound to work in accordance with their friends

in the army.

♦Ordinance for High Court of Justice.♦ First, in order to have a law

by which to convict Charles of treason, the Commons voted that it was

treason in the King of England to levy war against the Parliament and

kingdom; next, in order to have a court by which to try him, they

framed an ordinance for making a special or High Court of Justice,

composed of men of their own party. As the House of Lords, though it

had now dwindled down to twelve members, still had spirit enough to

reject the ordinance unanimously, the Commons resolved, that whatever

is enacted by the Commons has the force of law without the consent of

king or House of Peers, and then passed the ordinance in their own name

alone (Jan. 6th).

%TRIAL OF THE KING.%

The court first met in private in order to make preparations for the

trial. 135 judges were named on the ordinance, but many refused to

attend the sittings. Algernon Sidney came once, and interrupted the

debate by saying, “The king can be tried by no court, and no man by

this court.” “I tell you,” said Cromwell, “we will cut off his head

with the crown upon it.” “You may take your course, I cannot stop you,”

replied Algernon; “but I will keep myself clean from having any hand in

the business.”[148] He then left the room and never returned. Sir Henry

Vane retired into the country; Fairfax attended the first meeting only.

Charles had already been removed from Hurst Castle to Windsor, and

after a few days was taken on to London. The trial was held in

Westminster Hall. The judges, about eighty in number, sat upon benches,

which rose one above another at the upper end of the hall. Bradshaw,

Cromwell’s cousin, sat on a chair of state as Lord President of the

Court. Below the President’s chair was a table, on which lay the

sword and mace of the House of Commons. Twenty-one gentlemen, bearing

‘partisans,’ were ranged on either side in front of the judges. At the

other end of the table, opposite the President’s seat, was placed a red

velvet chair for the prisoner; within a bar on the right-hand side of

the prisoner’s chair stood the three solicitors for the Commonwealth.

Ladies and others were seated in galleries. The body of the hall was

filled with a tearful, expectant crowd, separated from the soldiers by

scaffoldings. The king was conducted up the centre of the hall by a

guard of soldiers. He did not raise his hat or show any sign of respect

to the court, but after regarding his judges severely for some moments,

turned round and inspected the crowds behind. Cook, the solicitor of

the Commonwealth, read the charge, in which Charles Stuart was accused

of having endeavoured to overturn the liberties of the people, and of

being guilty of all the murders and spoils under which the nation had

suffered, “wherefore the people of England impeached Charles Stuart

as a tyrant, traitor, and murderer.” The king smiled visibly when he

heard the words, “tyrant, traitor, murderer.” He persistently refused

to answer to the charge, asserting that the court had no lawful

authority derived from the people of England by which to try him, and

that therefore in refusing to plead “he stood more for the liberties of

the people than did his pretended judges.” Cook accordingly demanded

that sentence might be pronounced against the prisoner, in accordance

with the rule of law, that if the accused refuses to plead guilty or

not guilty, his silence be taken as a confession of guilt. The king

was brought before the court for the fourth and last time to hear his

sentence read. The President had changed his black for a scarlet gown.

He spoke as follows: ‘Gentlemen, it is well known to all, or most of

you here present, that the prisoner at the bar hath been several times

brought before the court to make answer to a charge of high treason,

exhibited against him in the name of the people of England----’

‘It’s a lie! not one half of them. Oliver Cromwell is a traitor!’

shouted a voice from one of the galleries.

A violent commotion arose in the hall; murmurs of indignation amongst

the soldiers, of applause amongst the crowd. The speaker was found to

be no less a person than Lady Fairfax, and order with some difficulty

having been restored, Bradshaw offered the prisoner for the last time

leave to answer to his charge, before sentence was pronounced. “I

desire,” said the king, “to make a proposal to the Lords and Commons in

the Painted Chamber, touching the peace of the kingdom and the liberty

of the subject.” The judges withdrew for half an hour, and on their

return Bradshaw first informed the king that his proposal was rejected,

and then made a long speech to justify the conduct of the Parliament,

charging the king with having ruled as a tyrant, and thereby rendered

resistance both a duty and necessity. “A great necessity,” he said,

“occasioned the calling of the Parliament, and what your designs

and plots and endeavours all along have been for the crushing and

confounding of this Parliament hath been very notorious to the whole

kingdom; it makes me call to mind that that we read of a great Roman

emperor--by-the-way, let us call him a great Roman tyrant--Caligula,

that wished that the people of Rome had had but one neck, that at one

blow he might cut it off. And your proceedings have been somewhat like

to this, for the body of the people of England hath been represented

but in the Parliament, and could but have confounded that, you had at

one blow cut off the neck of England. But God hath reserved better

things for us, and hath pleased for to confound your designs and to

break your forces, and to bring your person into custody that you might

be responsible to justice.”

The whole court stood up in sign of assent, while the clerk read the

sentence, that Charles Stuart, as a tyrant, traitor, and murderer,

should be put to death by the severance of the head from the body.

The king appeared deeply agitated and now tried to speak, but as he had

refused to plead before the sentence was given, he was not allowed to

speak after, and the judges rose and retired. The king, in the midst of

vain endeavours to make himself heard, was forced down the hall by the

soldiers, who shouted in his ears, ‘Justice! justice!’ ‘Execution!’ As

he passed in his chair from Westminster to Whitehall, the windows, the

shops, the streets, were crowded with people weeping and praying ‘God

to bless the king’[149] (Jan. 27th).

%EXECUTION OF THE KING.%

On taking leave of his two youngest children, who were still in

England, Charles bade the Lady Elizabeth, a girl of twelve years old,

tell her brother James it was his father’s last desire that he should

no longer look on Charles as his eldest brother only, but be obedient

to him as his sovereign. Then taking the little Duke of Gloucester

on his knee, he said to him, ‘Sweet heart, now they’ll cut off thy

father’s head; mark, child, what I say, they’ll cut off my head, and

perhaps make thee a king; but mark what I say, you must not be king so

long as your brothers Charles and James live; for they’ll cut off your

brothers’ heads when they can catch them, and cut off thy head too at

last; and, therefore, I charge you not to be made a king by them.’ ‘I

will be torn in pieces first,’ said the child weeping.[150] Charles

kissed them both, and bade Bishop Juxon have them taken away, while he

turned to the window to hide his own emotion. The next morning the king

walked from St. James’s to Whitehall amidst a guard of soldiers, with

Juxon on one side and Col. Tomlinson on the other, talking to them on

the way calmly and cheerfully. About noon he was conducted through a

passage, made in the wall of the Banqueting House at Whitehall, on to

the scaffold, which had been erected in the open street. Men and women

who had forced their way into the hall uttered prayers in his behalf

as he passed by. The soldiers throughout the whole occasion kept a

deep silence, awed by the solemnity of their own act. On the scaffold,

which was hung with black, stood two executioners disguised in masks.

Soldiers filled the space immediately below, so that the crowded

spectators beyond could hear no word the king uttered. Charles died

in the firm belief in which he had lived, that in the quarrel between

himself and his subjects he had been always in the right, they always

in the wrong. He addressed a short, cold speech to the few assembled

on the scaffold, in which he asserted this belief, and then prepared

calmly to die. “Hurt not the axe,” he said to a gentlemen who touched

its edge while he was speaking; “that may hurt me.” In the words of

Marvell:

“He nothing common did or mean

Upon that memorable scene,

But with his keener eye

The axe’s edge did try;

Nor call’d the gods with vulgar spite

To vindicate his helpless right;

But bow’d his comely head

Down, as upon a bed.”

“I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown,” he said to the

bishop, “where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the world.”

Then putting his head upon the block, he said to the executioner, “When

I put out my hands this way, then--; stay for the sign.” Within a few

moments the sign was given, and the executioner, holding the head up in

his hand, cried to the people, “Behold the head of a traitor.”

%INSTANCES OF DEPOSITION.%

By Charles’ trial two issues were decided, the king’s deposition and

his execution. The two issues are distinct. That a king holds office

for the good of his people, and, if he perverts his power to their

injury, may justly be deprived of it by their representatives, is a

constitutional principle, which has been acted on in the later as well

as in the earlier years of history. Forty years after the trial and

execution of Charles I., Parliament resolved that his son, King James

II., having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of the kingdom by

breaking the original contract between king and people, and having

violated the fundamental laws, and having withdrawn himself out of the

kingdom, had abdicated the government, that the throne had thereby

become vacant. The crown which the House of Stuart thus for a second

time forfeited, they proceeded to bestow upon William and Mary of

Orange. For a hundred years, in fact till the death of Charles Edward

in 1788, that the kings ruled by a Parliamentary title was not merely

a theoretical principle, but the actual basis of the settlement of

the crown. It was also one of the original principles of the nation.

The Saxon kings were, in fact, elected, and the principle was partly

recognized that what the nation gave, it could take away; Sigeberht,

Æthelred, Harthacnut were all deposed by the Witenagemot, or great

council of the nation. Hereditary succession was not established as

the rule in practice till the accession of Edward I. The sanction of

the nation was added in doubtful cases. Nor did the Great Council,

when transformed into the two Houses of Parliament, forget the use

of its ultimate power of deposition. In 1327 the moral sense of the

nation revolted at the conduct of its king. A bill, charging him with

immorality, incapacity, cruelty, and oppression was read and admitted

as a sufficient ground of deposition. By this, Parliament declared that

Edward II. had ceased to reign, and bestowed the crown on his son.

In 1399 thirty-three charges were read in Parliament against Richard

II. The king was declared guilty on every charge, and his deposition

pronounced. The scene was one which the great dramatist had made

familiar to the nation. When, therefore, the court told Charles that he

was responsible to the Commons of England, and was tried in the name of

the people of England, they were introducing no new principle into the

constitution. In such cases, the fictions of lawyers, which in ordinary

times may often be useful as preventives against revolutions, are cast

aside like gossamer threads, and the king, “who can do no wrong,”

stands arraigned as a common criminal.

If Charles then had been merely deposed by Parliament, he would never

have gained the reputation he has had as a martyr. The justice and

legality of the course taken to compass his death is, however, a

distinct question. His trial and execution was the work, not of a

full Parliament, but of a small minority which could make no pretence

of representing the people of England. To carry out their end, this

minority proceeded to violent measures which only circumstances of

extreme necessity could justify. They excluded members by violence from

the House of Commons;[151] they virtually abolished the House of Lords;

they passed a retrospective ordinance; and, instead of exercising their

function in Parliament according to precedent, they erected a new and

arbitrary court of justice.

It must, indeed, be said that a great advance had been made in the

treatment of deposed kings since the fourteenth century. An arbitrary

court and an _ex post facto_ law are better than the secret murder

which was the lot of Edward and Richard. The light of day and the

presence of the chief men of the nation gave the semblance of a fair

trial. Even this semblance is less debasing to the morality of the

community than the sanction of murder by government. Compared with

this, informalities were but a slight evil; indeed it could scarcely be

expected that a constitution could provide special legal forms for the

trial of the chief of the State, who could never be tried except after

a revolution.

On the one hand it has been said that the people had been rent asunder

into two great bodies, one engaged for the king, the other for the

Parliament, and that, therefore, if Charles was to be put on trial

for his life at all, he ought to have been tried, not by the rules of

common or statute law, but by those of international law, which obtain

between foreign nations. These forbid that the victors should take the

lives of the vanquished. It was, in fact, on these principles that the

struggle had been maintained. Prisoners on either side had rarely been

put to death as traitors, the fellow-feeling of the combatants, as well

as the fear of retaliation, having prevented such cruelty. The rules of

international law applied as much to the leaders as to their followers.

On the other hand, it was undoubtedly true that Charles was guilty

in a sense in which no other leader was guilty, and no mere general

could have been. For it was his deceptions, followed as they were by

the refusal of the necessary Militia Bill, that caused the war. Had he

read aright the history of the past, he would have seen that the great

Edward’s “pactum serva” contained the whole law for a constitutional

king. Charles was not punished as a combatant, but as the cause of the

combat, in other words, for his previous actions as a king. As for the

rights of war, the Independent leaders could scarcely have doubted

that, had the cases been reversed, he would have meted the same measure

to them.

The voice of the nation, however, was for clemency in the hour of their

king’s fall; they did not think he had committed such sanguinary crimes

as justified the violation of law to accomplish his death. Thousands

had fought on his side; thousands who had fought against him wished

to spare his life. His enemies might plead that they were acting in

self-defence; but if they counted on the king’s death stopping the

reaction, they greatly miscalculated. When Charles was dead, they had

his son to deal with, who had not, as his father, lost the confidence

of the nation.

%THE FEELINGS OF THE ACTORS.%

These objections were so strongly felt at the time, that several

officers, and several Republicans, stood aloof from the whole

proceeding. Fairfax, Skippon, Vane, Algernon Sidney, exerted all their

influence to prevent a trial for life, wishing to see the king merely

deposed. On the other hand, the mass of sectarians, Republicans, and

Levellers pressed for Charles’ execution as a grand and signal display

of justice; one that had not its record in history, and might serve as

a warning to all crowned heads for the future. Charles, according to

them, had broken his coronation oath, in which he swore to govern by

the laws of the land, and had thereby been the author of the civil war,

and the bloodshed attendant upon it. Any accommodation was alike unsafe

and wicked; unsafe, because his duplicity had been proved over and over

again; wicked, because of the express words to be found in God’s law,

that “blood defileth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the

blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.”[152]

“As for Mr. Hutchinson,” says his wife, “although he was very much

confirmed in his judgment concerning the cause, yet being here called

to an extraordinary action, whereof many were of several minds, he

addressed himself to God by prayer, desiring the Lord, that, if through

any human frailty he were led into any error, He would open his eyes

and not suffer him to proceed--and finding no check, he proceeded to

sign the sentence against the king. Although he did not then believe

but it might one day come to be again disputed among men, yet both

he and others thought they could not refuse it without giving up the

people of God (whom they had led forth and engaged themselves unto by

oath) into the hands of God and their enemies.”

Cromwell and Ireton placed themselves at the head of the movement they

were powerless to prevent. There is no doubt that they sympathized

in it. Only once does Cromwell allude to the execution, at least in

the letters and speeches that still remain. “They,” he says, “that

acted this great business have given a reason of their faith in

the action, and some here are ready, further, to do it against all

gainsayers.”[153] Such a decision as the Independent leaders had to

make in regard to the execution of Charles I., shows what is really

terrible in revolutions. It is not that men carry their lives in their

hands, the soldier thinks nothing of that. It is that crises come then,

when men cannot choose the good, cannot stand aside, but must choose

between two evils, and see the evil of what they choose. At such a time

many a man would gladly oppose both and fall; but a leader is bound

to the helm, though he may see no course but to run his ship on the

rocks, and drown some to save many. This is what is most terrible in

revolutions; after the fact it is terrible to all; it is terrible at the

time only to the weaker or more delicate spirits. These birds of calm

are caught by the storm and drowned while doubting. Not so the real

leaders of revolutions. They ride upon the storm. They see but as the

lightning flashes. To them the lesser evil seems a transcendent good.

Charles had hoped by his intrigues to crush Cromwell; he failed; and

Cromwell thenceforth looked upon him as hopelessly false; as one who

was destitute of that sense of truth between man and man, which was

a necessity of political life. Such a man, if a ruler, he held, must

be dealt with by banishment or by death, as an incurable evil of the

commonwealth. His was a stern mind, and a mind into which an idea of

privilege did not enter. There was with him no respect of persons. If

he had no mercy on Lilburne’s misguided Leveller, who endangered the

fidelity of a regiment, he was as severe to the prince, who endangered

the liberty of the country. Such a mind, intensely confident of its

own sense of justice, never recoiled from its conclusion. If it could

not draw back, still less could it conceal its purpose. As it abhorred

secret murder, so it abhorred that lingering murder, which, while

it shrinks from taking away life, shrinks not from taking away the

means of life. If Charles was to die, it could not be by the lingering

death Charles himself had assigned to Eliot. There was no secrecy in

Cromwell’s dealing with prince or private; the one was given over to

martial law before the eyes of his comrades; the other was given as

openly to no less stern inquisitors of blood.

%CAUSES OF SYMPATHY.%

The world, however, has not judged as Cromwell did. And, though on

grounds of abstract justice, it is hard to say why a king deserves

a mercy which he has denied to his subjects, yet many faults will

be forgiven to those who have had the difficult task of governing

others. Among the causes which have won an excess of sympathy for

Charles, we observe the natural pity for the greatness of the fall,

a disinclination to judge hardly of the fallen, but, above all, the

deep-rooted sentiment of loyalty, which the restriction of prerogative

has itself attached to the king, by making his throne the ideal element

of the constitution, and thus so raising him above parties, that

when his ministers do well, he receives the honour, when ill, he can

restore, or even increase, his own popularity by ridding himself of his

advisers. Besides these general considerations, it will be remembered

that the interpreter of his times for all the generations before our

own, has been one who wrote in the full tide of the reaction, and who,

as is now known, has not shrunk on occasion from suppressing truth, in

his endeavour to palliate the faults of one side or blacken those of

the other. The historian has been seconded so ably by the painter and

novelist, that a Cavalier has been held the type of all that is noble,

and a patriot of all that is mean. It will be noticed that the two

classes by whom Charles has been most admired, have been the clergy,

who may have been unconsciously biassed by a not unnatural antipathy

to the religious theories of his opponents; and those whose lives

have brought them least in contact with public interests: these have

judged him as one of their own society, and have been carried away by

the many virtues of his private life, his courage in the field, his

tender nature and his piety, as well as by the noble attitude in which

these qualities sustained him at his death. Those, on the other hand,

who have interested themselves deeply in the cause of the people, must

perforce judge public men by what they have done for the nation. In

their roll of martyrs will come not Charles, who died from reluctance

to abandon boldly a prerogative which had been proved to be untenable

and pernicious, but Eliot, who died in defence of the necessary rights

of the Commons’ house, and the ransacking of whose most secret papers

has only proved more clearly what was clear before, that the only ends

he aimed at were his country’s, his God’s, and truth’s. Those who look

to national interests will hold that the first intellectual virtue of

a ruler is an insight into the spirit of his time and the first moral

virtue, a sympathy with his people’s hopes and fears. As men may be

too good fathers, if they use patronage as a vehicle of nepotism, so

kings are too good husbands, when they give or withhold their consent

to the nation’s wishes according to the tempers or caprices of their

wives, and too good churchmen, when they put one half of their subjects

without the pale of toleration. This is not the sense in which, with

kings, as with others, “England expects every man to do his duty.”

FOOTNOTES:

[137] Rushworth, Abr., vi. 99, 100.

[138] Rushworth, Abr., vi. 113.

[139] Herb. Mem.; Rush. Abr., vi. 140, 144.

[140] Huntingdon in Masères Tracts, 398.

[141] Clar. State Papers, ii. appendix.

[142] See p. 73.

[143] Ashburnham’s Narrative, 94.

[144] Somers, Tracts, vi.

[145] Carl., i. 279-295; Hodgson and Slingsby, Mem.

[146] “Letter of an Ejected Member” (printed 1648).

[147] Memoirs of Col. Birch, 68, 96, 152, 236; Whitelock, Mem; Hollis,

Memoirs; ‘Fundamental Liberties of England vindicated,’ in King’s

Tracts.

[148] Blencowe, Sidney Papers, i. 237.

[149] Herb., Mem., 168.

[150] Rushworth, vi. 604; Herbert, 180.

[151] This great blot on the proceedings was well hit by a remonstrance

addressed to Ireton. “The godly and moral jealousy, I have over you

and others related to the lieutenant-general, makes me present these

few lines.... Surely of all others the change of laws and government

had need to be done in full Parliament. But that it may be as near

as possible the act of the whole people, as many as may be should be

present, lest it fails of the _esse_ of _magnum consilium_, or that the

absence of many by a forced or legal impediment be not judged a just

impediment to proceedings. And whether this Parliament be either a free

or impartial one will abide disputed at least, and if ever time shall

come in which examination may be of things and present transactions

in reference to this Parliament, who can tell if it may not be

judged beyond the Earl of Strafford’s fault, which was but arbitrary

government, which is but a slighting of laws--much of this a total

abolition of them?... It may, perhaps, come to be said of your many

dangerous ends and extraordinary actings, as the Romans of Pompey the

Great, his daughter, it was a fair and happy daughter, brought forth

of an ugly and odious mother; I wish it may be so--only thus much, if

you save the people of this land in the way you are in, it must be

both against their wills and prayers.” “This I delivered to Ireton

about a fortnight before the king’s trial. Signed, John Clayton.” See

an unpublished pamphlet among Clarendon Papers in Bodleian, entitled,

“State Colours and Complections, in which are reasons against the

proceedings to try the king.”

[152] Numbers xxxv. 33.

[153] Carl. ii. 210.