trevil, a French agent, who was at that time with the Scotch army before Newark, and the promises of the Scotch made to that agent, that they would receive him as their sovereign, and effectually join with him for the recovery of his just rights, induced him to take that step. "They have of ten," he says, "professed they have fought not against me, but for me. I must now resolve the riddle of their loyalty, and give them opportunity to let the world see they mean not what they do, but what they say."

When that memorable bargain was concluded, by which the Scotch sold and the English bought their king, Cromwell was one of the commissioners. Yet it is represented by his bitterest enemy, Hollis, that nothing could have been so desirable for Cromwell, and nothing so much wished for by that party who were bent upon destroying monarchy, as that the Scotch should have taken Charles with them into Scotland, instead of delivering him into the hands of the parliament; and he speaks of the sale as singularly honorable to both the contracting parties! "Here, then," he says, "the very mouth of iniquity was stopped: malice itself had nothing to say to give the least blemish to the faithfulness and reality of the kingdom of Scotland, the clearness of their proceedings, their zeal for peace, without self-seeking and self-ends, or any endeavors to make advantage of the miseries

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and misfortunes of England."* Charles himself saw the transaction in a very different light, as posterity has done. He declared that he was bought and sold. "Yet," he says in the Icon, 'may I justify those Scots to all the world in this, that they have not deceived me, for I never trusted to them, further than to men. If I am sold by them, I am only sorry they should do it; and that my price should be so much above my Savior's!Better others betray me than myself, and that the price of my liberty should be my conscience. The greatest injuries my enemies seek to inflict upon me can not be without my own consent."

The Scotch nation in general were sensible of the infamy which had been brought upon them by this act. The English were at first deceived by it for, rightly perceiving that peace and tranquillity could not be restored by any other means than by the restoration of the king to those just rights and privileges which he holds for the good of all, they believed that he was now to be brought in honor and safety to London. As he was taken from Newcastle to Holmby, they flocked from all parts to see him; and scrofulous patients were brought to receive the royal touch, in full belief of its virtue, and with entire affection to his person. If the intentions of Hollis and the presbyterian party had been such as they were afterward

[* Hollis, in Maseres' tracts, vol. i., p. 230.]

desirous to make the world believe, they had it in their power now to have imposed upon the king any terms to which he could conscientiously have submitted; and the army were not yet so completely lords of the ascendant as to have prevented such an accommodation. But that party had brought on the civil war; had slandered the king in the foulest spirit of calumny; and on every oc. casion had acted toward him precisely in that manner which would wound and insult him most: it is impossible to know what catastrophe they designed for the tragedy which they had planned and carried on thus far; but it is not possible that they intended a termination which should have been compatible with the honor and well-being of the sovereign whom they had so bitterly injured. With that brutality which characterized all their proceedings toward him, they refused to let any of his chaplains attend him at this time. There is no subject upon which the king, in his lonely meditations, has expressed himself with more feeling than this. upon 66 He says, When Providence was pleased to deprive me of all other civil comforts and secular attendants, I thought the absence of them all might best be supplied by the attendance of some of my chaplains, whom for their functions I reverence, and for their fidelity I have cause to love. By their learning, piety, and prayers, I hoped to be either better enabled to sustain

the want of all other enjoyments, or better fitted for the recovery and use of them in God's good time. The solitude they have confined me unto adds the wilderness to my temptation; for the company they obtrude upon me is more sad than any solitude can be. If I had asked my revenues, my power of the militia, or any one of my kingdoms, it had been no wonder to have been denied in those things, where the evil policy of men forbids all just restitution, lest they should confess an injurious usurpation : but to deny me the ghostly comfort of my chaplains seems a greater rigor and barbarity than is ever used by Christians to the meanest prisoners and greatest malefactors. But my agony must not be relieved with the presence of any one good angel; for such I account a learned, godly, and discreet divine and such I would have all mine to be. To thee, therefore, O God, do I direct my now solitary prayers! What I want of others' help, supply with the more immediate assistance of thy Spirit: in thee is all fulness: from thee is all sufficiency: by thee is all acceptance. Thou art company enough, and comfort enough. Thou art my King, be also my prophet and my priest. Rule me, teach me, pray in me, for me, and be thou ever with me."

The parliamentary leaders had no sooner won the victory than they began to divide the spoils. The parliament, by virtue of that sovereign authori

ty which it had usurped, created Essex and Warwick dukes; Hollis was made a viscount; Hazlerigg, Vane, Fairfax, and Cromwell, barons, the latter with a revenue of 2,500l., charged upon the estates of the marquis of Worcester. They filled up the places of those members who followed the king's party, or whom their violent measures had driven from the house; and this was done with a contempt of the laws which indicated that the people of England were now under the dominion of the sword. "First," says Hollis (who, being now on the weaker side, could see the enormity of their proceedings),-"first they did all they could to stop writs from going any whither but where they were sure to have fit men chosen for their turns; and many an unjust thing was done by them in that kind; sometimes denying writs, sometimes delaying till they had prepared all things and made it, as they thought, cock sure; many times committee-men in the country, such as were their creatures, appearing grossly, and bandying to carry elections for them; sometimes they did it fairly by the power of the army, causing soldiers to be sent and quartered in the towns where elections were to be; awing and terrifying, sometimes abusing and offering violence to the electors." The self-denying ordinance was totally disregarded now it had effected the object for which it was designed; and perhaps as the war in England was