which they now made use of was the worst imaginable. They sent Skippon, Cromwell, Ireton, and Fleetwood, to the head quarters at Saffron Weldon, in Essex, and empowered them to make offers to the army, and inquire into the cause of its distempers. These very generals, at least the three last, were secretly the authors of all the discontents; and failed not to foment those disorders which they pretended to appease. By their suggestion, a measure was embraced which at once brought matters to extremity, and rendered the mutiny incurable. In opposition to the parliament at Westminster, a military parliament was formed. Together with a council of the principal officers, which was appointed after the model of the house of peers, a more free representative of the army was composed, by the election of two private men or inferior officers, under the title of agitators, from each troop or company. By this means, both the general humor of that time was gratified, intent on plans of imaginary republics; and an easy method contrived for conducting, underhand, and propagating the sedition of the army. * This terrible court, when assembled, having first declared that they found no distempers in the army, but many griev ances under which it labored, immediately voted the offers of the parliament unsatisfactory. Eight weeks' pay alone, they said, was promised; a small part of fifty-six weeks, which they claimed as their due: no visible security was given for the remainder: and having been declared public enemies by the commons, they might hereafter be prosecuted as such, unless the declaration were recalled.† Before matters came to this height, Cromwell had posted up to London, on pretence of laying before the parliament the rising discontents of the army. The parliament made one vigorous effort more, to try the force of their authority: they voted, that all the troops which did not engage for Ireland, should instantly be disbanded in their quarters. At the same time, the council of the army ordered a general rendezvous of all the regiments, in order to provide for their common interests. And while they thus prepared themselves for opposition to the parliament, they * Rush. vol. vii. p. 485. Clarendon, vol. v. p. 43. struck a blow which at once decided the victory in their favor. A party of five hundred horse appeared at Holdenby, conducted by one Joyce, who had once been a tailor by profes sion, but was now advanced to the rank of cornet, and was an active agitator in the army. Without being opposed by the guard, whose affections were all on their side, Joyce came into the king's presence, armed with pistols, and told him, that he must immediately go along with him. "Whither?" said the king. "To the army," replied Joyce. "By what warrant?” asked the king. Joyce pointed to the soldiers whom he brought along; tall, handsome, and well accoutred. "Your warrant," said Charles, smiling, "is writ in fair characters, legible without spelling."* The parliamentary commissioners came into the room: they asked Joyce whether he had any orders from the parliament? he said, "No;" from the general? "No;" by what authority he came ? he made the same reply as to the king. "They would write," they said, “to the parliament to know their pleasure." "You may do so, replied Joyce; "but in the mean time, the king must immedidiately go with me." Resistance was vain. The king, after protracting the time as long as he could, went into his coach and was safely conducted to the army, who were hastening their rendezvous at Triplo Heath, near Cambridge. The par liament, informed of this event by their commissioners, wer thrown into the utmost consternation.† Fairfax himself was no less surprised at the king's arriva That bold measure, executed by Joyce, had never been com municated to the general. The orders were entirely verbai and nobody avowed them. And while every one affected astonishment at the enterprise, Cromwell, by whose counse it had been directed, arrived from London, and put an end their deliberations. This artful and audacious conspirator had conducted himself in the parliament with such profound dissimulation, witt such refined hypocrisy, that he had long deceived those who, being themselves very dexterous practitioners in the same arts, should naturally have entertained the more suspicion against others. At every intelligence of disorders in the army, he was moved to the highest pitch of grief and of anger. He * Whitlocke, p. 254. Warwick, p. 299. † Rush. vol. vii. p. 514, 515. Clarendon, vol. v. p. 47. wept bitterly: he lamented the misfortunes of his country: he advised every violent measure for suppressing the mutiny. and by these precipitate counsels at once seemed to evince his own sincerity, and inflamed those discontents of which he intended to make advantage. He obtested heaven and earth that his devoted attachment to the parliament had rendered him so odious in the army, that his life, while among them, was in the utmost danger; and he had very narrowly escaped a conspiracy formed to assassinate him. But information being brought that the most active officers and agitators were entirely his creatures, the parliamentary leaders secretly resolved, that, next day, when he should come to the house, an accusation should be entered against him, and he should be sent to the Tower.* Cromwell, who, in the conduct of his desperate enterprises, frequently approached to the very brink of destruction, knew how to make the requisite turn with proper dexterity and boldness. Being informed of this design, he hastened to the camp; where he was received with acclamations, and was instantly invested with the supreme command both of general and army. Fairfax, having neither talents himself for cabal, nor penetration to discover the cabals of others, had given his entire confidence to Cromwell; who, by the best colored pretences, and by the appearance of an open sincerity and a scrupulous conscience, imposed on the easy nature of this brave and virtuous man. The council of officers and the agitators were moved altogether by Cromwell's direction, and conveyed his will to the whole army. By his profound and artful conduct, he had now attained a situation where he could cover his enterprises from public view; and seeming either to obey the commands of his superior officer, or yield to the movements of the soldiers, could secretly pave the way for his future greatness. While the disorders of the army were yet in their infancy, he kept at a distance, lest his counterfeit aversion might throw a damp upon them, or his secret encouragement beget suspicion in the parliament. As soon as they came to maturity, he openly joined the troops; and, in the critical moment, struck that important blow of seizing the king's person, and depriving the parliament of any resource of an accommodation with him. Though one visor fell off, another still remained to cover his natural countenance. * Clarendon, vol. v. p. 46. Where delay was requisite, he could employ the most indefatigable patience: where celerity was necessary, he flew to a decision. And by thus uniting in his person the most opposite talents, he was enabled to combine the most contrary interests in a subserviency to his secret purposes. The parliament, though at present defenceless, was possessed of many resources; and time might easily enable them to resist that violence with which they were threatened. Without further deliberation, therefore, Cromwell advanced the army upon them, and arrived in a few days at St. Albans. Nothing could be more popular than this hostility which the army commenced against the parliament. As much as that assembly was once the idol of the nation, as much was it now become the object of general hatred and aversion. The self-denying ordinance had no longer been put in execution, than till Essex, Manchester, Waller, and the other officers of that party, had resigned their commission: immediately after, it was laid aside by tacit consent; and the members, sharing all offices of power and profit among them, proceeded with impunity in exercising acts of oppression on the helpless nation. Though the necessity of their situation might serve as an apology for many of their measures, the people, not accustomed to such a species of government, were not disposed to make the requisite allowances. * A small supply of one hundred thousand pounds a year could never be obtained by former kings from the jealous humor of parliaments; and the English, of all nations in Europe, were the least accustomed to taxes; but this parlia ment, from the commencement of the war, according to some computations, had levied, in five years, above forty millions; yet were loaded with debts and incumbrances, which, during that age, were regarded as prodigious. If these computations should be thought much exaggerated, as they probably are,† the taxes and impositions were certainly far higher than in any former state of the English government; and such *Clement Walker's History of the two Juntos, prefixed to his History of Independency, p. 8. This is an author of spirit and ingenuity; and being a zealous parliamentarian, his authority is very considerable, notwithstanding the air of satire which prevails in his writings. This computation, however, seems much too large; especially as the sequestrations during the time of war could not be so considerable as afterwards. † Yet the same sum preciselv is assigned in another book, called Royal Treasury of England, p. 297. H N popular exaggerations are at least a proof of popular dis contents. But the disposal of this money was no less the object of general complaint against the parliament than the levying of it. The sum of three hundred thousand pounds they openly took, it is affirmed,* and divided among their own members. The committees, to whom the management of the different branches of revenue was intrusted, never brought in their accounts, and had unlimited power of secreting whatever sums they pleased from the public treasure. These branohes were needlessly multiplied, in order to render the revenue more intricate, to share the advantages among greater numbers, and to conceal the frauds of which they were universally suspected.‡ The method of keeping accounts practised in the exchequer, was confessedly the exactest, the most ancient, the best known, and the least liable to fraud. The exchequer was for that reason abolished, and the revenue put under the management of a committee, who were subject to no control.§ The excise was an odious tax, formerly unknown to the nation; and was now extended over provisions, and the common necessaries of life. Near one half of the goods and chattels, and at least one half of the lands, rents, and revenues of the kingdom, had been sequestered. To great numbers of royalists, all redress from these sequestrations was refused: to the rest, the remedy could be obtained only by paying large compositions, and subscribing the covenant, which they abhorred. Besides pitying the ruin and desolation of so many ancient and honorable families, indifferent spectators could not but blame the hardship of punishing with such severity actions which the law, in its usual and most undisputed interpretation, strictly required of every subject. The severities, too, exercised against the Episcopal clergy naturally affected the royalists, and even all men of candor, in a sensible manner. By the most moderate computation, it * Clement Walker's History of Independency, p. 3, 166. + Clement Walker's History of Independency, p. 8. Clement Walker's History of Independency, p. 8. See John Walker's Attempt towards recovering an Account of the Numbers and Sufferings of the Clergy. The parliament pretended to leave the sequestered clergy a fifth of their revenue; but this author makes it sufficiently appear that this provision, small as it is, was never regularly paid the ejected clergy. |