from the commencement of the civil dissensions, to interpose their mediation, which they knew would be so little favorable to the king: and the king for that very reason had ever endeavored, with the least offensive expressions, to decline it.* Early this spring, the earl of Loudon, the chancellor, with other commissioners, and attended by Henderson, a popular and intriguing preacher, was sent to the king a: Oxford, and renewed the offer of mediation; but with the same success as before. The commissioners were also empowered to press the king on the article of religion, and to recommend to him the Scottish model of ecclesiastic worship and discipline. This was touching Charles in a very tender point: his honor his conscience, as well as his interest, he believed to be intimately concerned in supporting prelacy and the liturgy.t He begged the commissioners, therefore, to remain satisfied with the concessions which he had made to Scotland; and having modelled their own church according to their own principles, to leave their neighbors in the like liberty, and not to intermeddle with affairs of which they could not be supposed competent judges.‡ The divines of Oxford, secure, as they imagined, of a victory, by means of their authorities from church history, their quotations from the fathers, and their spiritual arguments, desired a conference with Henderson, and undertook by dint of reasoning to convert that great apostle of the north: but Henderson, who had ever regarded as impious the least doubt with regard to his own principles, and who knew of a much better way to reduce opponents than by employing any theological topics, absolutely refused all disputation or controversy. The English divines went away full of admiration at the blind assurance and bigoted prejudices of the man: he on his part was moved with equal wonder at their obstinate attachment to such palpable errors and delusions. By the concessions which the king had granted to Scotland, It became necessary for him to summon a parliament once in three years; and in June of the subsequent year was fixed the period for the meeting of that assembly. Before that time elapsed, Charles flattered himself that he should be abie, by some decisive advantage, to reduce the English parliament to a reasonable submission, and might then expect with security *Rush. vol. vi. p. 398. † See note N, at the end of the volume. Rush. vol. vi. p. 462. he meeting of a Scottish parliament. Though earnestly solicited by Loudon to summon presently that great council of the nation, he absolutely refused to give authority to men who had already excited such dangerous commotions, and who showed still the same disposition to resist and invade his authority. The commissioners, therefore, not being able to prevail in any of their demands, desired the king's passport for Lond, where they purposed to confer with the English parliament; and being likewise denied this request, they returned with extreme dissatisfaction to Edinburgh. * The office of conservators of the peace was newly erected in Scotland, in order to maintain the confederacy between the wo kingdoms; and these, instigated by the clergy, were re solved, since they could not obtain the king's consent, to sum mon in his name, but by their own authority, a convention of states; and to bereave their sovereign of this article, the only one which re rained, of his prerogative. Under color of providing for national peace, endangered by the neighborhood of English armies, was a convention called; an assembly which though it meets with less solemnity, has the same authority as a parliament in raising money and levying forces. Hamilton, and his brother the earl of Laneric, who had been sent into Scotland in order to oppose these measures, wanted either authority or sincerity; and passively yielded to the torrent. The general assembly of the church met at the same time with the convention; and exercising an authority almost abso lute over the whole civil power, made every political consider ation yield to their theological zeal and prejudices. The English parliament was at that time fallen into great distress by the progress of the royal arms; and they gladly sent to Edinburgh commissioners, with ample powers to treat of a nearer union and confederacy with the Scottish nation. The person employed were the earl of Rutland, Sir William Armyne, Sir Henry Vane the younger, Thomas Hatcher, and Henry Dailey, attended by Marshall and Nye, two clergymen of signal authority. In this negotiation, the man chiefly trusted was Vane, who, in eloquence, address, capacity, as well as in art and dissimulation, was not surpassed by any one even during that age, so famous for active talents. By his persuasion was framed, at Edinburgh, that Solemn League * Rush. vol. vi. p. 406. Whitlocke, p. 73. Rush. vol. vi. p. 466. Clarendon, vol. 1 and Covenant, which effaced all former protestations and vow taken in both kingdoms, and long maintained its credit and authority. In this covenant, the subscribers, besides engaging mutually to defend each other against all opponents, bound themselves to endeavor, without respect of persons the extirpation of Popery and prelacy, superstition, heresy. schism, and profaneness; to maintain the rights and priv ileges of parliaments, together with the king's authority and to discover and bring to justice all incendiaries and malignants.* The subscribers of the covenant vowed also to preserve the reformed religion established in the church of Scotland; but, by the artifice of Vane, no declaration more explicit was made with regard to England and Ireland, than that these kingdoms should be reformed according to the word of Goa and the example of the purest churches. The Scottish zeal ots, when prelacy was abjured, deemed this expression quite free from ambiguity, and regarded their own model as the only one which corresponded in any degree to such a description: but that able politician had other views; and while he employed his great talents in overreaching the Presbyterians, and secretly laughed at their simplicity, he had blindly devoted himself to the maintenance of systems still more absurd and more dangerous. In the English parliament there remained some members who, though they had been induced, either by private ambition or by zeal for civil liberty, to concur with the majority, still retained an attachment to the hierarchy, and to the ancient modes of worship. But in the present danger which threatened their cause, all scruples were laid aside; and the covenant, by whose means alone they could expect to obtain so considerable a reënforcement as the accession of the Scottish nation, was received without opposition. The parliament, therefore, having first subscribed it themselves, ordered it to be received by all who lived under their authority. Great were the rejoicings among the Scots, that they should be the happy instruments of extending their mode of religion, and dissipating that profound darkness in which the neighboring nations were involved. The general assembly applauded this glorious imitation of the piety displayed by their ancestors. who, they said, in three different applications, during the reign Rush vol. vi. p. 478. Clarendon, vol iii. p. 373. * of Elizabeth, had endeavored to engage the English, by persuasion, to lay aside the use of the surplice, tippet, and cornercap. The convention, too, in the height of their zeal, ordered every one to swear to this covenant, under the penalty of confiscation; besides what further punishment it should please the ensuing parliament to inflict on the refusers, as enemies to God, to the king, and to the kingdom. And being determined that the sword should carry conviction to all refractory minds, they prepared themselves, with great vigi lance and activity, for their military enterprises. By means cf a hundred thousand pounds, which they received from England; by the hopes of good pay and warm quarters; not to mention men's favorable disposition towards the cause; they soon completed their levies. And having added to their other forces the troops which they had recalled from Ireland, they were ready, about the end of the year, to enter England, under the command of their old general, the earl of Leven, with an army of above twenty thousand men.t The king, foreseeing this tempest which was gathering upon him, endeavored to secure himself by every expedient; and he cast his eye towards Ireland, in hopes that this kingdom, from which his cause had already received so much prejudice, might at length contribute somewhat towards his protection and security. After the commencement of the Irish insurrection, the English parliament, though they undertook the suppression of it, had ever been too much engaged, either in military projects or expeditions at home, to take any effectual step towards fin. ishing that enterprise. They had entered, indeed, into a con.ract with the Scots, for sending over an army of ten thousand men into Ireland; and in order to engage that nation in this undertaking, besides giving a promise of pay, they agreed to put Caricfergus into their hands, and to invest their general with an authority quite independent of the English government. These troops, so long as they were allowed to remain, were useful, by diverting the force of the Irish rebels, and protect ing in the north the small remnants of the British planters. Fut except this contract with the Scottish nation, all the other measures of the parliament either were hitherto absolutely insignificant, or tended rather to the prejudice of the Prot *Rush. vol. vi. 388. estant cause in Ireland. By continuing their violent persecution, and still more violent menaces against priests and Papists, they confirmed the Irish Catholics in their rebellion, and cut off all hopes of indulgence and toleration. By disposing beforehand of all the Irish forfeitures to subscribers or adventurers, they rendered all men of property desperate, and seemed to threaten a total extirpation of the natives.* And while they thus infused zeal and animosity into the enemy, no measure was pursued which could tend to support or encourage the Protestants, now reduced to the last extremities. So great is the ascendant which, from a iong course of successes, the English has acquired over the Irish nation, that though the latter, when they receive military discipline among foreigners, are not surpassed by any troops, they have never, in their own country, been able to make any vigorous effort for the defence or recovery of their liberties. In many rencounters, the English, under Lord More, Sir William St. Leger, Sir Frederic Hamilton, and others, had, though under great disadvantages of situation and numbers, put the Irish to rout, and returned in triumph to Dublin. The rebels raised the siege of Tredah, after an obstinate defence made by the garrison.† Ormond had obtained two complete victories at Kilrush and Ross; and had brought relief to all the forts which were besieged or blockaded in different parts of the kingdom. But notwithstanding these successes, even the most common necessaries of life were wanting to the victorious armies. The Irish, in their wild rage against the British planters, had laid waste the whole kingdom, and were themselves totally unfit, from their habitual sloth and ignorance, to raise any convenience of human life. During the course of six months, no supplies had come from England, except the fourth part of one small vessel's lading. Dublin, to save itself from starving, had been obliged to send the greater part of its inhabitants to England. The army had little ammunition, scarcely exceeding forty barrels of gunpowder; not even shoes or clothes; and for want of food, the soldiers had been obliged to cat their own horses. And though the distress * A thousand acres in Ulster were given to every one that subcribed two hundred pounds, in Connaught to the subscribers of three hundred and fifty, in Munster for four hundred and fifty, in Leinster for six hundred. ་ Rush vol. vi. p. 506. Rush. vol. vi. p. 512. |