moving his Majesty, freed themselves from his importunity, they had resolved to rid their hands of him altogether. They deemed it more politic, at the same time, to devolve the final negotiations with the monarch upon the Parliament, whom they should thereby render responsible for the catastrophe which they saw was likely to take place; for they knew well that the Presbyterian party would not come to an agreement with him on the terms proposed by the army, and that their own faction in the Commons would not now treat on the lowest conditions to which his misfortunes might compel him to descend.

In a case so extremely complicated, and which involved the fate of so many interests, not easy to be reconciled, it is not surprising that there should have been perpetuated against Charles the charge of insincerity. He did not fail to perceive the value of his accession to both of the two parties who courted him; and as it was avowedly a bargain on either side, the imputation of selfish motives might perhaps, not without some show of justice, have been reciprocally urged by the King, the Parliament, and the army. His Majesty, too, laboured under a peculiar disadvantage in conducting all the treaties which were proposed to him after the battle of Naseby, inasmuch as he could not negotiate with more than a part of his people at one time; and hence he had no security that his concessions, however ample, would effect the great object which both himself and his opponents professed to have in view.

For example, in the conference which took

place at Hampton Court, where Charles rejected the propositions offered by Cromwell and his son-in-law, Sir John Berkeley, being desirous to bring about a settlement, " demanded of Ireton and the other officers, what they would do if the King should consent; by whom it was answered, that they would offer them to the Parliament for their approbation." From this acknowledgment we may perceive, that an acceptance of the terms proposed by the army would not necessarily have formed the basis of a peace with the national representatives; and, consequently, that the sovereign had much reason in his arguments when he requested that commissioners might be mutually appointed by the Parliament and by the council of officers respectively, to prepare the way for a personal treaty, in the conclusions of which all interests might be united.

To this plan, however, apparently so equitable, neither the military nor parliamentary leaders could ever be induced to accede. Each wished to negotiate separately; to gain the royalists by closing with their master; to strengthen their own hands, in short, in order that they might be able to put down their rivals. Can it be a matter of surprise, then, that Charles, when he found that the only result at which his negotiations could arrive, was to array the King and the Parliament against the army, or the King and the army against the Parliament, should have hesitated to conclude with either faction; and that he should have entreated, as he all along did entreat, to be allowed to submit the controversy to the people at large, in the capital of his empire?

In the meantime, his Majesty was assailed by reports of various kinds that his life was in danger, and informed that if he wished to escape the hand of an assassin, he must forthwith leave Hampton Court. Being perplexed by the counsels of his secret enemies, and by the zeal of his injudicious friends, he knew not what expedient to adopt. Some advised him to go to London and make his appearance in the House of Lords; others recommended his immediate departure from the kingdom; while a third party suggested an immediate and unconditional compliance with the views of the Presbyterians in Scotland as well as in England. "At last," says Ludlow, "he resolved to go to the isle of Wight, being, ás is most probable, recommended thither by Cromwell, who, as well as the King, had a good opinion of Colonel Hammond, the governor there."*

* Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 2156

CHAPTER VI.

Containing an Account of the Principal Occurrences which took place from the time that the King arrived in the Isle of Wight, to the period of his Execution in January 1649.

THE vigorous measures adopted by Fairfax and Cromwell at the general rendezvous of the army, placed the power of the commonwealth entirely in their hands. The Parliament, after the retreat of the eleven members, had shown a disposition to submit to their military guides, and even, to promote their views; and every thing would have hastened to a confirmed despotism under the mixed oligarchy of the sword and the gown, had not the people, whose interests had ceased to be remembered by either party, revived for a moment to a sense of the danger with which they were threatened. They had seen the war come to an end without bestowing upon them any of the advantages which they had been led to expect. A sum of money, large beyond all precedent, was raised annually upon the property and labour of the nation; an army exceeding forty thousand men was kept up to overawe the populace, whose battles they pretended to fight; while hundreds of officers,

originally poor and of the meanest professions, were now in the enjoyment of great wealth, and some of them not a little disposed to trample on the rights of their less fortunate brethren.*

The King having rejected the four proposals, or bills, as they were called, which were sent to him as the basis of a treaty, Cromwell and Ireton laboured to stimulate the Commons to the most violent resolutions. The latter, professing to speak the sense of the army, under the appellation of Many Thousand Godly Men, who had hazarded their lives in defence of the Parliament, asserted that the King, by declining the bills, had refused safety and protection to his people. He reminded the members, that their obedience to the sovereign was but a reciprocal duty for his attention to their interests; and that as he had failed on his part, they were freed from all obligations to allegiance, and must settle the nation without consulting any longer so misguided a prince. Cromwell, in like manner, after giving a flattering character of the army, whose valour and godliness he extolled in the highest degree, recommended that the Parliament should now guide and defend the kingdom by their own power, and not accustom the people any longer to expect safety and government from an obstinate man whose heart God had hardened. "Teach

* Mrs Hutchinson, speaking of Major-General Harrison, says, that he "who was but a meane man's sonne, and of a meane education, and no estate before the warre, had gathered an estate of L.2000 a-yeare, besides engrossing grate offices, and maintained his coach and family at a heighth as if they had been borne to principallity." Vol. ii. p. 175.