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stands (vol. ii. p. 848): " Thus I have reported the substance of the debate, and on which side the victory lies shall be left to the reader. By his Majesty's MANNER, one would almost have thought he had lain under no mortification; that the rebellion had been crushed; and that his affairs had been in the easiest posture imaginable. He discovers no mark of dejection or disturbance. He lays down solid principles; looks through Henderson's discourse with great penetration, attacks him in his main strength, and argues with force and perspicuity, and all this without being furnished with common convenience, without books or divines to assist him: besides, his Majesty engaged no ordinary champion, for, to give Henderson his due, he was a person of learning, elocution, and judgment, made the best of his way, and seems to have been the top of his party. It is credibly reported*, that Henderson's being worsted in the controversy, threw him into a deep melancholy, which ended in a mortal distemper. Some say he died a convert to his Majesty, and that he did him the justice of an extraordinary character, in managing a debate of this nature. The Eng lish commissioners being informed how well his Majesty had acquitted himself against Henderson, declined engaging in any dispute, and only desi his answer to their propositions; but these

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*Heylin, Hist. Presb. p. 477. Reliquiæ Sacr

p. 309.

VOL. II.

80 unreasonable, the King could give them no satisfaction.":

T

XVI. In the mean time new proposals of agreement were presented to Charles by the Parliament. But when we state, that the terms were his taking the covenant and sanctioning the Directory, educating all children of Papists as Protestants, exempting from pardon all Papists who had served in-the army, with all members of Parliament who had joined the royal standard, and rendering ecclesiastics who had joined him incapable of preferment, (what becomes of Mr. Neale's account of the restoration of their livings on a pacification?) we need not wonder that Charles turned a deaf ear to the friends who advised him to treat, and replied, that his conscience was dearer to him than his crown.

XVII. 1647. The Scottish army, after having promised to the French ambassador, to receive and protect the King on his surrender of himself into their hands, now basely sold him for 200,000l. of arrears *. Neale states, that Charles, being removed, agreeably to his own wish, was left at Holmby, in Northamptonshire, for the convenience of readier conference with the Parliament; and that the simultaneous receipt of the arrears was matter of accident. But would the English have paid the arrears without receiving the King;

* It was to procure this sum that the episcopal lands, were alienated.

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or the Scots parted with their prize without obtaining the arrears † ?

XVIII. In his new prison, the King was insulted with the compliment of two parliamentary divines; but he refused to attend their preaching on the Sundays, and would not even permit their saying grace at his table. The Presbyterians, seeing every thing quiet, proposed a reduction of the military force. Their pretence was to lighten the pressure of public burdens; but they really aimed a blow at their sectarian adversaries, who, they knew, predominated in the army. In the mean time, resting on their own strength in Parliament, they were obstinate in refusing toleration to any other religious party. The independent and fanatical army, however, had no inclination to be disbanded: they were not mercenary soldiers, they declared, but patriots, who had taken up arms in the cause of liberty of conscience, and would not lay them down till that end should be attained. A military parliament was formed by a council of officers, to represent the peers; while an inferior house composed of two privates, as agitators, was chosen from each company. The Parliament of Westminster, apprehensive of this mutinous spirit, renewed their treaty with the King, on the basis proposed at Newcastle; that of his settlin Presbyterianism for three years, yielding up t

+ Warburton.

militia for ten, and consenting to act against the Papists. The army were now in despair; and the seizure of the King by Joyce, with his removal to head-quarters at Newmarket, became a measure necessary to their security. Both before and after the seizure, they attempted to treat with his Majesty, proposing to reinstate him on his throne, and demanding no return but toleration. Whether they were serious in their offer is a different question. Neale speaks of this host of fanatics as of a body of reasoning men, whose violence was the offspring of despair, and who had not, at first, the slightest intention of deposing and murdering the King-not they; although Peters, Cromwell's chaplain, and other desperate enthusiasts, were fond of preaching on the text (Psalm cxlix. 6-8), " to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron. This honour have all the saints;" and although soon after, some of the military pastors changed the phrase in the Lord's Prayer, "Thy kingdom come," into, "Thy commonwealth come." Being in possession of the prize, they rose in their tone of demand; and the more effectually to hasten the downfall of their oppressors, they attempted to conciliate the favour of Charles with promises and gentle treatment, principally by allowing him to use the Liturgy, to be attended by four chaplains, and to hold intercourse with his children; all which indulgences the Presbyterians had denied him. The King, however, distrusted these specious

overtures, both of the Parliament and the army. He still fondly clung to the vain imagination that his own party was strong enough to obtain the ascendant.

XIX. The army carried Charles along with them in all their marches, and settled him, in August 1647, at Hampton Court, where he remained three months, enjoying the splendour of royalty. At length Cromwell, whose ambitious views began to open, terrified him with an account of the menaces alleged to be aimed by the agitators against his life, and thus urged him to attempt an escape from the palace. The wily leader availed himself of this device as an excuse for confining him more securely; having been fearful lest to adopt that measure directly should awaken the slumbering loyalty of the nation. Charles was shut up in Carisbrook Castle in the Isle of Wight (November 1647), during nearly a year, without more than one or two servants *.

: Cromwell having now, to use his own expression, "the King in his hand, and the Parliament in his pocket," suppressed the agitators and levellers of the army. Their visions of a republic, in

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* See Herbert's Last Days of Charles I.-In this retiren the sacred Scriptures were the book he most delighted in; bu read often in Bishop Andrews's Sermons, Hooker cal Polity, Dr. Hammond's Works, Villalpand kiel, Sandys's Paraphrase upon King David's Psa Divine Poems, &c.

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