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III.

1651.

He was charged with treason. By the new act of treason, whoever plotted, contrived, or endeavoured to stir up, or raise force against the present government, or for its subversion, incurred the pains of treason. According to the old act of Edward the Third, to levy war against the chief magistrate was treason. Charles the Second at this time possessed no authority or dominion in England, and, by the law of nations, had no right to appoint an ambassador or envoy in the character of king of England. The proceedings of this envoy, whatever they were, tended to disturb the character and functions of the ambassador of the English government. They set up a pretender, a rival government, and were calculated to bring into discredit the government by which the affairs of England were at this time administered. How far this amounted to treason is somewhat difficult to say. The high court of justice pronounced it and execu- such; and sir Henry Hyde suffered accordingly on the fourth of March 1651. The parliament no doubt took this step the rather, that they might put themselves on an unequivocal footing with foreign countries, and to shew that, if they were new in authority, they did not on that account intend to allow themselves to be treated with disrespect.

tion.

Browne
Bushel.

The last person to be mentioned under this head

'Athenæ Oxonienses, Vol. II, p. 1152. Whitlocke, Mar. 1. Heath, p. 285. Lloyd, p. 559, 560.

XII.

1651.

is Browne Bushel, one of the five that had been CHAP. ordered for trial with sir William Davenant. Bushel was a sea-faring man and a pirate, a man who adhered to no party, and seemed to set himself above all laws. He first betrayed Scarborough to the parliament, and then secured it against the parliament for the king. He had anew been trusted by the parliament, and appointed to the command of a ship, and in this situation was deeply concerned in the revolt of the fleet to the king in 1648". For these multiplied infidelities he was at length brought to account, and suffered death on the twenty-ninth of March".

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CHAPTER XIII.

STATE OF SCOTLAND.-DISCUSSIONS BETWEEN THE
SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT AND THE ENGLISH.-
CHARLES THE SECOND INVITED BY THE SCOTS.
-DISASTROUS EXPEDITION OF MONTROSE.-
LANDING OF CHARLES.-FAIRFAX AND CROM-
WEL ORDERED TO MARCH AGAINST HIM.-
FAIRFAX RESIGNS. CROMWEL APPOINTED
COMMANDER IN CHIEF.

III.

1650.

Cromwel in
London.

BOOK CROMWEL, as we have seen, was summoned home from his command in Ireland early in the year 1650. The first vote for that purpose was passed in parliament on the eighth of January. It was not till the fourth of June, that, owing to various delays from contrary winds, and from the urgency of the service in Ireland, Cromwel presented himself in his place in parliament, and received the thanks of the house for his exemplary and meritorious exertions in that country".

1649. State of the people of Scotland.

The affair in which it was conceived that the government so cogently required his assistance, was that of Scotland. Scotland was a country very

a Journals.

Journals. Cromwelliana, p. 80.

XIII.

1649. Their anti

pathy to the

ment in

differently circumstanced from England in many CHAP. essential respects. The Scots were almost to a man presbyterian, and were therefore impressed with the utmost antipathy to the present ruling party in the southern state, as a body of licentious governand lawless sectaries. They were wholly unpre- England. pared for republican speculations, and regarded with impatience the dishonour fastened on their government, who, by delivering up Charles to the English after he had thrown himself on their protection, had eventually produced his tragical catastrophe: though nothing could be more unjust than the making them accountable for it, as in delivering him up they had no rational mode of avoiding to do so, and they had delivered him to the English presbyterians, men certainly not less averse to republican and king-killing doctrines than themselves. In Scotland the feudal institutions were universal, and existed in the utmost vigour; a state of things in the highest degree alien to the democratical speculations which were now so extensively spread among the English.

of Argyle.

The man who at this time held the principal Character sway in Scotland, was Argyle; and he is supposed to have been stimulated by an aversion to the Stuart race, and to have proceeded in all his political designs in concert with Cromwele. But it is an arduous, and in many cases an impracti

See above, Vol. II, p. 572.

III.

1649.

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BOOK cable undertaking, to guide the affairs of a country, in direct opposition to the opinions and prejudices of the great majority of its inhabitants; and Argyle was by nature gifted with that subtlety and hypocrisy, which should best enable him to accommodate himself to circumstances, and to endeavour to advance his real ends by the most unpromising and indirect means. The presbyterians of Scotland were as bigoted and enthusiastical a set of men as are to be found in history, and they were guided by their clergy in the most blindfold and implicit manner. Argyle had therefore the difficult task of rendering this clergy subservient to his ends. Meanwhile he had the advantage of being himself a sincere presbyterian, though his prejudices of that sort seem never to have prevented him from following what he deemed the dictates of true policy.

Charles the
Second pro-

Conformably to this state of things, the cataclaimed in strophe of Charles the First was no sooner known Edinburgh. in Scotland, than Charles the Second on the fifth of February was in the usual forms proclaimed at the high cross in Edinburgh king of Great Britain, France and Ireland. Loudon, the chancellor, read the proclamation, and the parliament-lords in their robes assisted at the solemnity. The parliament was now sitting, and orders were immediately voted that the earl of Lothian, sir John

d Balfour, Annals of Scotland, Vol. III, p. 387. Heath, p. 232.

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