the very day was named on which, it was averred, he 1645. would take his place in the house. But Fairfax, having appointed a rendezvous of the army, wrote to the parliament, and desired leave to retain for some days lieutenant general Cromwell, whose advice, he said, would be useful in supplying the place of those officers who had resigned. Shortly after, he begged with much earnestness, that they would allow Cromwell to serve that campaign'. And thus the independents, though the minority, prevailed by art and cunning over the presbyterians, and bestowed the whole military authority, in appearance, upon Fairfax; in reality, upon Cromwell.

Fairfax was a person equally eminent for courage and Fairfax. for humanity; and though strongly infected with prejudices, or principles derived from religious and party zeal, he seems never, in the course of his public conduct, to have been diverted by private interest or ambition from adhering strictly to these principles. Sincere in his professions, disinterested in his views, open in his conduct, he had formed one of the most shining characters of the age, had not the extreme narrowness of his genius in every thing but in war, and his embarrassed and confused elocution on every occasion but when he gave orders, diminished the lustre of his merit, and rendered the part which he acted, even when vested with the supreme command, but secondary and subordinate.

Cromwell, by whose sagacity and insinuation Fairfax Cromwell. was entirely governed, is one of the most eminent and most singular personages that occurs in history: the strokes of his character are as open and strongly marked, as the schemes of his conduct were, during the time, dark and impenetrable. His extensive capacity enabled him to form the most enlarged projects: his enterprising genius was not dismayed with the boldest and most dangerous. Carried by his natural temper to magnanimity, to grandeur, and to an imperious and domineering policy; he yet knew, when necessary, to employ the most profound dis

Clarendon, vol. v. p. 629, 630. Whitlocke, p. 141.

1645. simulation, the most oblique and refined artifice, the semblance of the greatest moderation and simplicity. A friend to justice, though his public conduct was one continued violation of it; devoted to religion, though he perpetually employed it as the instrument of his ambition; he was engaged in crimes from the prospect of sovereign power, a temptation which is in general irresistible to human nature. And by using well that authority which he had attained by fraud and violence, he has lessened, if not overpowered, our detestation of his enormities, by our admiration of his success and of his genius.

Treaty of

During this important transaction of the self-denying Uxbridge. ordinance, the negotiations for peace were likewise carried on, though with small hopes of success. The king having sent two messages, one from Evesham ", another from Tavistoke, desiring a treaty, the parliament despatched commissioners to Oxford with proposals, as high as if they had obtained a complete victory". The advantages gained during the campaign, and the great distresses of the royalists, had much elevated their hopes; and they were resolved to repose no trust in men inflamed with the highest animosity against them, and who, were they possessed of power, were fully authorised by law to punish all their opponents as rebels and traitors.

The king, when he considered the proposals, and the disposition of the parliament, could not expect any accommodation, and had no prospect but of war, or of total submission and subjection: yet, in order to satisfy his own party, who were impatient for peace, he agreed to send the duke of Richmond and earl of Southampton with an answer to the proposals of the parliament, and at the same time to desire a treaty upon their mutual demands and pretensions. It now became necessary for him to retract his former declaration, that the two houses at Westminster were not a free parliament; and accordingly he was induced, though with great reluctance, to give them, in his answer, the appellation of the parliament of Dugdale, p. 737.

u 4th of July, 1644. Rush. vol. vi. p. 850.

8th of Sept. 1644. z Whitlocke, p. 110.

England. But it appeared afterwards, by a letter which he wrote to the queen, and of which a copy was taken at Naseby, that he secretly entered an explanatory protest in his council book; and he pretended, that though he had called them the parliament, he had not thereby acknowledged them for such. This subtlety, which has been frequently objected to Charles, is the most noted of those very few instances from which the enemies of this prince have endeavoured to load him with the imputation of insincerity; and have inferred, that the parliament could repose no confidence in his professions and declarations, not even in his laws and statutes. There is, however, it must be confessed, a difference universally avowed between simply giving to men the appellation which they assume, and the formal acknowledgement of their title to it; nor is any thing more common and familiar in all public transactions.

1645.

The time and place of treaty being settled, sixteen 30th Jan. commissioners from the king met at Uxbridge with twelve authorised by the parliament, attended by the Scottish commissioners. It was agreed, that the Scottish and parliamentary commissioners should give in their demands with regard to three important articles, religion, the militia, and Ireland; and that these should be successively discussed in conference with the king's commissioners. It was soon found impracticable to come to any agreement with regard to any of these articles.

In the summer 1643, while the negotiations were carried on with Scotland, the parliament had summoned an assembly at Westminster, consisting of one hundred and twenty one divines and thirty laymen, celebrated in their party for piety and learning. By their advice, alterations

a Whitlocke, p. 111. Dugdale, p. 748.

b His words are, "As for my calling those at London a parliament, I shall refer thee to Digby for particular satisfaction. This in general: if there had been but two besides myself of my opinion, I had not done it; and the argument that prevailed with me was, that the calling did no ways acknowledge them to be a parliament; upon which condition and construction I did it, and no otherwise; and accordingly it is registered in the council books, with the council's unanimous approbation." The King's Cabinet opened. Rush. vol. vi. p. 943. Whitlocke, p. 121. Dugdale, p. 758.

1645.

were made in the thirty-nine articles, or in the metaphysical doctrines of the church; and, what was of greater importance, the liturgy was entirely abolished, and in its stead a new directory for worship was established; by which, suitably to the spirit of the puritans, the utmost liberty both in praying and preaching was indulged to the public teachers. By the solemn league and covenant episcopacy was abjured, as destructive of all true piety; and a national engagement, attended with every circumstance that could render a promise sacred and obligatory, was entered into with the Scots, never to suffer its readmission. All these measures showed little spirit of accommodation in the parliament; and the king's commissioners were not surprised to find the establishment of presbytery and the directory positively demanded, together with the subscription of the covenant, both by the king and kingdom d.

a Such love of contradiction prevailed in the parliament, that they had converted Christmas, which with the churchmen was a great festival, into a solemn fast and humiliation: "In order," as they said, "that it might call to remembrance our sins and the sins of our forefathers, who, pretending to celebrate the memory of Christ, have turned this feast into an extreme forgetfulness of him, by giving liberty to carnal and sensual delights." Rush. vol. vi. p. 817. It is remarkable, that as the parliament abolished all holy days, and severely prohibited all amusement on the sabbath; and even burned, by the hands of the hangman, the king's book of sports; the nation found that there was no time left for relaxation or diversion. Upon application, therefore, of the servants and apprentices, the parliament appointed the second Tuesday of every month for play and recreation. Rush. vol. vii. p. 460. Whitlocke, p. 247. But these institutions they found great difficulty to execute; and the people were resolved to be merry when they themselves pleased, not when the parliament should prescribe it to them. The keeping of Christmas holy days was long a great mark of malignancy, and very severely censured by the commons. Whitlocke, p. 286. Even minced pies, which custom had made a Christmas dish among the churchmen, was regarded, during that season, as a profane and superstitious viand by the sectaries; though at other times it agreed very well with their stomachs. In the parliamentary ordinance too for the observance of the sabbath, they inserted a clause for the taking down of maypoles, which they called a heathenish vanity. Since we are upon this subject, it may not be amiss to mention that, beside setting apart Sunday for the ordinances, as they called them, the godly had regular meetings on the Thursdays, for resolving cases of conscience, and conferring about their progress in grace. What they were chiefly anxious about, was the fixing the precise moment of their conversion or new birth; and whoever could not ascertain so difficult a point of calculation, could not pretend to any title to saintship. The profane scholars at Oxford, after the parliament became masters of that town, gave to the house in which the zealots assembled the denomination of Scruple Shop: the zealots, in their turn, insulted the scholars and professors; and, intruding into the place of lectures, declaimed against human learning, and challenged the most knowing of them to prove that their calling was from Christ. See Wood's Fasti Oxonienses, p. 740.

Had Charles been of a disposition to neglect all theological controversy, he yet had been obliged, in good policy, to adhere to episcopal jurisdiction; not only because it was favourable to monarchy, but because all his adherents were passionately devoted to it; and to abandon them, in what they regarded as so important an article, was for ever to relinquish their friendship and assistance. But Charles had never attained such enlarged principles. He deemed bishops essential to the very being of a christian church; and he thought himself bound, by more sacred ties than those of policy, or even of honour, to the support of that order. His concessions, therefore, on this head he judged sufficient, when he agreed that an indulgence should be given to tender consciences with regard to ceremonies; that the bishops should exercise no act of jurisdiction or ordination, without the consent and counsel of such presbyters as should be chosen by the clergy of each diocese; that they should reside constantly in their diocese, and be bound to preach every Sunday; that pluralities be abolished; that abuses in ecclesiastical courts be redressed; and that a hundred thousand pounds be levied on the bishops' estates and the chapter lands, for payment of debts contracted by the parliament. These concessions, though considerable, gave no satisfaction to the parliamentary commissioners; and, without abating any thing of their rigour on this head, they proceeded to their demands with regard to the militia.

The king's partisans had all along maintained, that the fears and jealousies of the parliament, after the securities so early and easily given to public liberty, were either feigned or groundless; and that no human institution could be better poised and adjusted than was now the government of England. By the abolition of the starchamber and court of high commission, the prerogative, they said, has lost all that coercive power by which it had formerly suppressed or endangered liberty: by the establishment of triennial parliaments, it can have no lei

* Dugdale, p. 779, 780.

1645.