The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of King George the Fifth Part 16

[Footnote 1: Parl. Hist. iii. 64.]

[Footnote 2: Skippon had been appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in Ireland, with the t.i.tle of field-marshal, and six pounds per day for his entertainment.--Journals, ix. 122, Ap. 6. He also received the sum of one thousand pounds for his outfit--Holles, p. 250.]

others, from the House of Commons--were appointed to superintend the disbandment of the forces; and peremptory orders were despatched to the lord general, to collect all the regiments under his immediate command on Newmarket Heath on Wednesday the 9th of June, and to second to the utmost of his power the proceedings on the part of the six deputies. He professed obedience; but of his own authority changed the place of rendezvous to Triploe Heath, between Cambridge and Royston, and the day also from Wednesday to Thursday, apparently with a view to the convenience of the two houses.[1]

It was only on the morning of Wednesday that the earl of Nottingham, with his five companions, was able to set out from London on their important mission; and, while they were on the road, their colleagues at Westminster sought to interest Heaven in their favour by spending the day, as one of fasting and humiliation, in religious exercises, according to the fas.h.i.+on of the time.[a] Late in the evening the commissioners reached Cambridge, and immediately offered the votes and ordinances, of which they were the bearers, to the acceptance of Fairfax and his council. The whole, however, of the next morning was wasted (artfully, it would seem, on the part of the officers) in trifling controversies on mere matters of form, till at last the lord general deigned to return an answer which was tantamount to a refusal.[b] To the proposals of parliament he preferred the solemn engagement already entered into by the army on Newmarket Heath, because

[Footnote 1: The orders of the parliament with respect to the time and place are in the Lords' Journals, ix. 241. Yet the debates on the concessions did not close before Tuesday, nor did the negotiation between the commissioners and the military council conclude till afternoon on Thursday.--Ibid. 247, 353.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1647. June 9.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1647. June 10.]

the latter presented a more effectual way of disbanding the forces under his command without danger, and of extinguis.h.i.+ng satisfactorily the discontent which pervaded the whole nation. If, however, the commissioners wished to ascertain in person the real sentiments of the soldiery, he was ready with his officers to attend upon them, whilst they made the inquiry.[1] It was now one in the afternoon; every corps had long since occupied its position on the heath; and there is reason to believe, that the opportunity afforded by this delay had been improved to prepare each regiment separately, and particular agents in each regiment, against the arrival and proposals of the commissioners. The latter dared not act on their own discretion, but resolved to obey their instructions to the very letter. Proceeding, therefore, to the heath, they rode at once to the regiment of infantry of which Fairfax was colonel. The votes of the two houses were then read to the men, and Skippon, having made a long harangue in commendation of the votes, concluded by asking whether, with these concessions, they were not all satisfied. "To that no answer can be returned," exclaimed a voice from the ranks, "till your proposals have been submitted to, and approved by, the council of officers and agitators."

The speaker was a subaltern, who immediately, having asked and obtained permission from his colonel to address the whole corps, called aloud, "Is not that the opinion of you all?" They shouted, "It is, of all, of all."

"But are there not," he pursued, "some among you who think otherwise?"

"No," was the general response, "no, not one." Disconcerted and abashed, the commissioners turned aside, and, as they withdrew, were

[Footnote 1: The correspondence is in the Journals, ibid.]

greeted with continual cries of "Justice, justice, we demand justice."[1]

From this regiment they proceeded to each of the others. In every instance the same ceremony was repeated, and always with the same result. No one now could doubt that both officers and men were joined in one common league; and that the link which bound them together was the "solemn engagement."[2]

Both looked upon that engagement as the charter of their rights and liberties. No concession or intrigue, no partiality of friends.h.i.+p or religion, could seduce them from the faith which they had sworn to it.

There were, indeed, a few seceders, particularly the captains, and several of the lord general's life-guard; but after all, the men who yielded to temptation amounted to a very inconsiderable number, in comparison with the immense majority of those who with inviolable fidelity adhered to the engagement, and, by their resolution and perseverance, enabled their leaders to win for them a complete, and at the same time a bloodless victory.

3. On the next day a deputation of freeholders from the county of Norfolk, and soon afterwards similar deputations from the counties of Suffolk, Ess.e.x, Herts, and Buckingham, waited with written addresses upon Fairfax.

They lamented that now, when the war with the king was concluded, peace had not brought with it the blessings, the promise of which by the parliament had induced them to submit to the evils and privations of war; a disappointment that could be attributed only to the obstinacy with which certain individuals clung to the emoluments of office

[Footnote 1: Rushworth, vi. 518. Whitelock, 251. Holles, 252.]

[Footnote 2: Nottingham's Letter in the Lords' Journals, ix. 253.]

and the monopoly of power. To Fairfax, therefore, under G.o.d, they appealed to become the saviour of his country, to be the mediator between it and the two houses. With this view, let him keep his army together, till he had brought the incendiaries to condign punishment, and extorted full redress of the grievances so severely felt both by the army and the people.[1]

The chiefs, however, who now ruled at Westminster, were not the men to surrender without a struggle. They submitted, indeed, to pa.s.s a few ordinances calculated to give satisfaction, but these were combined with others which displayed a fixed determination not to succ.u.mb to the dictates of a mutinous soldiery. A committee was established with power to raise forces for the defence of the nation: the favourite general Skippon was appointed to provide for the safety of the capital; and the most positive orders were sent to Fairfax not to suffer any one of the corps under his command to approach within forty miles of London. Every day the contest a.s.sumed a more threatening aspect. A succession of pet.i.tions, remonstrances, and declarations issued from the pens of Ireton and Lambert, guided, it was believed, by the hand of Cromwell. In addition to their former demands, it was required that all capitulations granted by military commanders during the war should be observed; that a time[a] should be fixed for the termination of the present parliament; that the House of Commons should be purged of every individual disqualified by preceding ordinances;

[Footnote 1: Lords' Journals, 260, 263, 277. Holles says that these pet.i.tions were drawn by Cromwell, and sent into the counties for subscriptions.--Holles, 256.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1647. June 14.]

and, in particular, that eleven of its members, comprising Holles, Glyn, Stapleton, Clotworthy, and Waller, the chief leaders of the Presbyterian party, and members of the committee at Derby House, should be excluded, till they had been tried by due course of law for the offence of endeavouring to commit the army with the parliament. To give weight to these demands, Fairfax, who seems to have acted as the mere organ of the council of officers,[1] marched successively to St. Alban's, to Watford, and to Uxbridge.[a] His approach revealed the weakness of his opponents, and the cowardice, perhaps hypocrisy, of many, who foresaw the probable issue of the contest, and deemed it not their interest to provoke by a useless resistance the military chiefs, who might in a few hours be their masters.[b] Hence it happened that men, who had so clamorously and successfully appealed to the privileges of parliament, when the king demanded the five members, now submitted tamely to a similar demand, when it was made by twelve thousand men in arms. Skippon, their oracle, was one of the first deserters. He resigned the several commands which he held, and exhorted the Presbyterians to fast and pray, and submit to the will of G.o.d.[c] From that time it became their chief solicitude to propitiate the army. They granted very ingeniously leave of absence to the eleven accused members; they ordered the new levies for the defence of the city to be disbanded, and the

[Footnote 1: "From the time they declared their usurped authority at Triploe Heath (June 10th), I never gave my free consent to any thing they did; but being yet undischarged of my place, they set my name in way of course to all their papers, whether I consented or not."--Somers's Tracts, v. 396. This can only mean that he reluctantly allowed them to make use of his name; for he was certainly at liberty to resign his command, or to protest against the measures which he disapproved.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1647. June 12.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1647. June 25.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1647. June 21.]

new lines of communication to be demolished; they sent a month's pay to the forces under Fairfax, with a vote declaring them the army of the parliament, and appointed commissioners to treat with commissioners from the military council, as if the latter were the representatives of an independent and coequal authority.[1]

This struggle and its consequences were viewed with intense interest by the royalists, who persuaded themselves that it must end in the restoration of the king; but the opportunities furnished by the pa.s.sions of his adversaries were as often forfeited by the irresolution of the monarch.

While both factions courted his a.s.sistance, he, partly through distrust of their sincerity, partly through the hope of more favourable terms, balanced between their offers, till the contest was decided without his interference. Ever since his departure from Holmby, though he was still a captive, and compelled to follow the marches of the army, the officers had treated him with the most profound respect; attention was paid to all his wants; the general interposed to procure for him occasionally the company of his younger children; his servants, Legge, Berkeley, and Ashburnham, though known to have come from France with a message from the queen,[2]

were permitted to attend him; and free access was

[Footnote 1: Rushworth, vi. 518-596. Whitelock, 251-256. Holles, 104.

Journals, 249, 257, 260, 263, 275, 277, 284, 289, 291, 298. Commons', June 7, 11, 12, 15, 18, 25, 26, 28. On divisions in general, the Presbyterians had a majority of forty; but on the 28th, the first day after the departure of their leaders, they were left in a minority of eighty-five to one hundred and twenty-one.--Ibid.]

[Footnote 2: "I returned with instructions to endeavour by the best means imaginable such a compliance between his majesty and the army, as might have influence, and beget a right understanding between his majesty and the parliament"--Ashburnham's Letter, in 1648, p. 5.]

given to some of his chaplains, who read the service in his presence publicly and without molestation. Several of the officers openly professed to admire his piety, and to compa.s.sionate his misfortunes; even Cromwell, though at first he affected the distance and reserve of an enemy, sent him secret a.s.surances of his attachment; and successive addresses were made to him in the name of the military, expressive of the general wish to effect an accommodation, which should reconcile the rights of the throne with those of the people. A secret negotiation followed through the agency of Berkeley and Ashburnham; and Fairfax, to[a] prepare the public for the result, in a letter to the two houses, spurned the imputation cast upon the army, as if it were hostile to monarchical government, justified the respect and indulgence with which he had treated the royal captive, and maintained that "tender, equitable, and moderate dealing towards him, his family, and his former adherents," was the most hopeful course to lull asleep the feuds which divided the nation. Never had the king so fair a prospect of recovering his authority.[1]

In the treaty between the commissioners of the parliament and those of the army, the latter proceeded with considerable caution. The redress of military grievances was but the least of their cares; their great object was the settlement of the national tranquillity on what _they_ deemed a solid and permanent basis. Of this intention they had suffered some hints to transpire; but before the open announcement of their plan, they resolved to bring the city, as they had brought the parliament, under subjection.

London,

[Footnote 1: Journals, ix. 323, 324. Ashburn. ii. 91. Also Huntingdon's Narrative, x. 409.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1647. July 2.]

with its dependencies, had hitherto been the chief support of the contrary faction; it abounded with discharged officers and soldiers who had served under Ess.e.x and Waller, and who were ready at the first summons to draw the sword in defence of the covenant; and the supreme authority over the military within the lines of communication had been, by an ordinance of the last year, vested in a committee, all the members of which were strongly attached to the Presbyterian interest. To wrest this formidable weapon from the hands of their adversaries, they forwarded a request to the two houses, that the command of the London militia might be transferred from disaffected persons to men distinguished by their devotion to the cause of the country. The Presbyterians in the city were alarmed; they suspected a coalition between the king and the Independents; they saw that the covenant itself was at stake, and that the propositions of peace so often voted in parliament might in a few days be set aside. A pet.i.tion was presented[a]

in opposition to the demand of the army; but the houses, now under the influence of the Independents, pa.s.sed[b] the ordinance; and the city, on its part, determined[c] to resist both the army and the parliament. Lord Lauderdale, the chief of the Scottish commissioners, hastened to the king to obtain his concurrence; a new covenant, devised in his favour, was exposed at Skinners' Hall, and the citizens and soldiers, and probably the concealed royalists, hastened in crowds to subscribe their names. By it they bound themselves, in the presence of G.o.d, and at the risk of their lives and fortunes, to bring the sovereign to Westminster, that he might confirm the concessions which he had made in his letter from Holmby, and

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1647. July 14.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1647. July 23.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1647. July 24.]

might confer with his parliament on the remaining propositions. But the recent converts to the cause of the army hastened to prove the sincerity of their conversion. Both Lords and Commons voted this engagement an act of treason against the kingdom; and the publication of the vote, instead of damping the zeal, inflamed the pa.s.sions of the people. The citizens pet.i.tioned a second time, and received a second refusal. The moment the pet.i.tioners departed, a mult.i.tude of apprentices, supported by a crowd of military men, besieged the doors of the two houses; for eight hours they continued, by shouts and messages, to call for the repeal of the ordinance respecting the militia, and of the vote condemning the covenant; and the members, after a long resistance, worn out with fatigue, and overcome with terror, submitted to their demands. Even after they had been suffered to retire, the mult.i.tude suddenly compelled the Commons to return, and, with the speaker in the chair, to pa.s.s a vote[a] that the king should be conducted without delay to his palace at Westminster. Both houses adjourned for three days, and the two speakers, with most of the Independent party and their proselytes, amounting to eight peers and fifty-eight commoners, availed themselves of the opportunity to withdraw from the insults of the populace, and to seek an asylum in the army.[1]

In the mean while the council of officers had completed their plan "for the settlement of the nation," which they submitted first to the consideration of Charles, and afterwards to that of the parliamentary commissioners. In many points it was similar to the

[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 260, 261. Journals, ix. 377, 393. Holles, 145.

Leicester's Journal in the Sydney Papers, edited by Mr. Blencowe, p. 25.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1647. July 25.]

celebrated "propositions of peace;" but contained in addition several provisions respecting the manner of election, and the duration of parliament and the composition of the magistracy, which may not be uninteresting to the reader even at the present day. It proposed that a parliament should meet every year, to sit not less than a certain number of days, nor more than another certain number, each of which should be fixed by law; that if at the close of a session any parliamentary business remained unfinished, a committee should be appointed with power to sit and bring it to a conclusion; that a new parliament should be summoned every two years, unless the former parliament had been previously dissolved with its own consent; that decayed and inconsiderable boroughs should be disfranchised, and the number of county members increased, such increase being proportionate to the rates of each county in the common charges of the kingdom; that every regulation respecting the reform of the representation and the election of members should emanate from the House of Commons alone, whose decision on such matters should have the force of law, independently of the other branches of the legislature; that the names of the persons to be appointed sheriffs annually, and of those to be appointed magistrates at any time, should be recommended to the king by the grand jury at the a.s.sizes; and that the grand jury itself should be selected, not by the partiality of the sheriff, but equally by the several divisions of the county; that the excise should be taken off all articles of necessity without delay, and off all others within a limited time; that the land-tax should be equally apportioned; that a remedy should be applied to the "unequal, troublesome, and contentious way of ministers' maintenance by t.i.thes;" that suits at law should be rendered less tedious and expensive; that the estates of all men should be made liable for their debts; that insolvent debtors, who had surrendered all that they had to their creditors, should be discharged; and that no corporation should exact from their members oaths trenching on freedom of conscience.[1] To these innovations, great and important as they were, it was not the interest, if it had been the inclination, of Charles to make any serious objection: but on three other questions he felt much more deeply,--the church, the army, and the fate of the royalists: yet there existed a disposition to spare his feelings on all three; and after long and frequent discussion, such modifications of the original proposals were adopted, as in the opinion of his agents, Berkeley and Ashburnham, would insure his a.s.sent. 1. Instead of the abolition of the hierarchy, it was agreed to deprive it only of the power of coercion, to place the liturgy and the covenant on an equal footing, by taking away the penalties for absence from the one, and for refusal of the other; and to subst.i.tute in place of the oppressive and sanguinary laws still in force, some other provision for the discovery of popish recusants, and the restraint of popish priests and Jesuits, seeking to disturb the state. 2. To restore to the crown the command of the army and navy at the expiration of ten years. 3. And to reduce the number of delinquents among the English royalists to be excluded from pardon, to five individuals. Had the king accepted these terms, he would most probably have been replaced on the throne; for his agents, who had the best means of forming a judgment, though

[Footnote 1: Charles's Works, 579. Parl. History, ii. 738.]

they differed on other points, agreed in this, that the officers acted uprightly and sincerely; but he had unfortunately persuaded himself--and in that persuasion he was confirmed both by the advice of several faithful royalists and by the interested representations of the Scottish commissioners--that the growing struggle between the Presbyterians and Independents would enable him to give the law to both parties; and hence, when "the settlement" was submitted to him for his final approbation, he returned an unqualified refusal. The astonishment of his agents was not less than that of the officers. Had he dissembled, or had he changed his mind? In either case both had been deceived. _They_ might suppress their feelings; but the agitators complained aloud, and a party of soldiers, attributing the disappointment to the intrigues of Lord Lauderdale, burst at night into the bedchamber of that n.o.bleman, and ordered him to rise and depart without delay. It was in vain, that he pleaded his duty as commissioner from the estates of Scotland, or that he solicited the favour of a short interview with the king: he was compelled to leave his bed and hasten back to the capital.[1]

Before this, information of the proceedings in London had induced Fairfax to collect his forces and march towards the city. On the way he was joined by the speakers of both houses, eight lords and fifty-eight commoners, who in a council held at Sion House solemnly bound themselves "to live and die with the army." Here it was understood that many royalists

[Footnote 1: Compare the narratives of Berkeley, 364, Ashburnham, ii. 92, Ludlow, i. 174, and Huntingdon (Journals, x. 410) with the proposals of the army in Charles's Works, 578. The insult to Lauderdale is mentioned in the Lords' Journals, ix. 367.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1647. July 30.]