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"but to make a treaty with him now when he was conquered proved an impossible one." All attempts at negotiation were found to be fruitless. The King was, in fact, conscientious, and therefore altogether hopeless in his duplicity, holding himself bound by no agreement he might enter into with rebellious subjects, and considering himself justified in deceiving them by the most shameless duplicity. The King was still flattering himself with the faithless hope, thus expressed, in writing to Lord Digby, "I do not despair of inducing the Presbyterians or the Independents to join with me in exterminating one another; and then I shall be King again," when the Scottish and English parliaments, who found all attempt at treaty with him vain and impossible, completed mutual agreements without him. "I am bought and sold,” exclaimed the King when he learned that the Scots had agreed to surrender him to the English parliament. This exclamation, which was natural enough to Charles under such circumstances, has been re-echoed by nearly every historian, and the Scottish nation charged as guilty of the indelible disgrace of having sold their king. Zealous preachers of divine right even proved it unparalleled save by our Saviour's betrayal; and Dr. Samuel Johnson found in it abundant justification for his ridiculous national prejudices! A few words may put the whole question at rest. The Scots began their determined resistance to the policy of Charles the very day that Laud's service-book was attempted to be read in the Old Church of St. Giles, at Edinburgh. They maintained their resolute front against every attempted encroachment on what they regarded as the precious fruits of the Reformation. United as a nation in conscientious adherence to the faith and forms of the Presbyterian Church, with a degree of unanimity scarcely manifested in the history of any other people, they had refused to league with the friends of liberty in England on any other terms than the mutual

recognition of that solemn Covenant, which had so long been regarded as one of the chief defences of their national faith. But this conceded to them, they marched, as we have already seen, through storm and snow, resolute in aiding the English parliament against their despotic King. It was to these allies, who had shared in the victory of Marston Moor, and contributed so largely to turn the scale of victory to the side of the parliament, that Charles addressed himself for protection, at a time when he hoped that the differences existing between the Presbyterian and Independent parties might incline the former to welcome his accession to them. The Scots, in good faith, offered to negotiate with him if he would take the Covenant. A Presbyterian people in fact offered to acknowledge him as a Presbyterian king. But this he refused; and his resolute adherence to episcopacy declared all hope of mutual agreement was at an end. The General Assembly of the Scottish Church protested against periling the union of the kingdoms to serve a prince who rejected the Covenant of Christ; and the Scottish leaders delivered up the King to the commissioners appointed by the English parliament. The object of the Scots' invasion was at an end, and on receiving their arrears of pay, claimed long before, and which have become in the eyes of prejudiced royalists and Jacobites, the thirty pieces of silver of these Scottish Judases, they took their departure homeward, having accomplished the very object for which they had entered England.

The proceedings of the English Presbyterian party meanwhile, were tending towards other results. They had obtained for a time supremacy in parliament, and while rejoicing over the triumphs achieved by the army, looked upon it as their faithful and willing servant. Such an army, however, had scarcely ever before assembled in defence of popular rights. From the General to the humblest subaltern they were actuated by one spirit, each fighting against the crown, as a power that had encroached

on rights chartered to them by God himself; an army of kings fighting against one. No wonder that such should be found to question the proceedings of parliament also, when it stood in the King's place only to change one yoke for another. A little later Cromwell himself puts the question thus, when writing to his kinsman, Hammond, the custodier of the King in the Isle of Wight, after asking, "Whether salus populi be a sound position?" and this and other positions being assumed in the very nature of things as they then stood, he goes on to ask, "Whether this army be not a lawful power, called by God to oppose and fight against the King upon some stated grounds; and being in power to such ends, may not oppose one name of authority for those ends as well as another? the outward authority, that called them, not by their power making the quarrel lawful; but it being so in itself. If so, it may be, acting will be justified in foro humano; "-. acting against abused authority, under any name.

The position of Presbyterianism in Scotland and England was altogether different. Among the Scots, where almost perfect unanimity prevailed as to the national religion, presbytery was welcomed as the supremacy of right and truth over error. The case, however, was altogether different in England; presbytery there was merely one of the many forms which dissent from the intolerant Church courts and Star-Chamber of Laud had assumed. The alliance with Scotland had strengthened it for a time, and the conditions on which co-operation with England had been agreed to, tended for a time to give it apparently the sanction of the nation. A very different party, however, had united with them against the encroachments of irresponsible power. Young Milton had already made himself heard, and in noble and most powerful language had summoned his countrymen to contend for liberty of conscience, liberty of the press, and all the great popular rights which have

since been gradually secured to the nation. A numerous party, including many of the ablest men of the age, had responded to such sentiments, and these were not the men likely to sit down contented with the exchange of Prelatic for Presbyterian rule. Absolute uniformity was vainly aimed at by the reformers, amid such a clash of opinions of divine right and apostolic succession, presbytery, independency, and all the varied forms of newlyacquired freedom of thought. Usher, Howe, Baxter, Jeremy Taylor, Bunyan, Fox, and every other man of independent thought, were all to be bound down to the same rule! Such, surely, was not the object for which Milton beheld England "as a noble and puissant nation, rousing herself as a strong man after sleep, or as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam;" as little indeed as was the glorious restoration which seemed for a time its only fruits. Against such a consummation Cromwell set himself with determined resolution. It was for no such poor exchange that he had left the happy domestic circle at Ely, and exchanged the plough and pruning hook for the sword. Some time, however, elapsed before each party took up its own ground. When Cromwell returned to parliament after the conclusion of the campaign, he was welcomed with extraordinary honours. The Speaker rose with the whole members to receive him on his entering the House, and communicated to him in flattering terms the thanks of the parliament for his great and valuable services. Soon after, both valuable lands and money were conferred on him as more substantial tokens of gratitude, and an order passed the great seal desiring his Majesty to confer and settle on Lieutenant-General Oliver Cromwell, and the heirs male of his body, the title and dignity of a baron of the kingdom of England. While these steps were being carried out in London, his Majesty,-who was thus acknowledged as still being the sole fount of

honour, by the somewhat equivocal deference which made him the rewarder of his conqueror,-was exposed to the chances of the strife that now threatened to render the parliament and their army antagonists. Under the influence chiefly of Cromwell, the parliamentary army had gradually been weeded of all unstable trimmers, and, to a great extent, of that class of moderate but feeble politicians not unaptly represented by their former leader, Essex, who rather assumed arms with the hope of thereby intimidating the King, and inducing him to concede their demands, than with any thought of dictating terms to a vanquished oppressor. Among the latter class of timid politicians a great portion of the Presbyterians were included, and while the unity of their aims and the republican forms of their ecclesiastical system gave them strength, their lack both of promptness of action and determined energy enabled Cromwell and the Independent party to triumph while others were discussing their plans. The King and his confidential advisers soon saw that this was the party they must pacify or deceive; and many negotiations were opened with Cromwell, in which there seems not the slightest evidence to discredit the perfect sincerity of the latter, and his desire to establish a constitutional monarchy, wherein the popular rights would be placed on a safe and permanent basis.

It is not necessary to follow out the various struggles between the parties thus getting arrayed against one another, for the custody of the King, and the attainment of their separate objects, after the departure of the Scots. Various negotiations were opened by the King with all the leaders in succession, occasionally with several of them at once, but only with the usual results. Charles contrived to ruin every attempt at his restoration to the throne by the most fatal treachery; and nothing so strongly proves how deep-rooted was the veneration for the monarchy, with all its halo of rights and honours

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