not from them and go to the rebels,"-should he resolve to go to Newcastle, they were to "send a party to attend him thither for his security; and it seems fit," they add, "that his Majesty have always a life-guard of persons in whom they may confide,"in other words, that he should be kept under strict surveillance and restraint in all particulars by which their interests could be compromised.*

The succeeding scenes of the drama were now rapidly enacted. Leslie immediately raised the siege of Newark, and marched to Newcastle, where the King was strictly guarded, but otherwise treated with respect. He sent notice of his surrender to the Parliament of England, desiring to know what terms of peace they would grant him. They would agree to nothing unless the Covenant were confirmed and Episcopacy abolished,-Charles refused his consent, and the English turned to their Scottish allies, with whom the unhappy King was equally at a loss for reconciliation, bent as they were on the total abolition of that great buttress of absolutism, as essential to their security. The English pressed the Scots to surrender the King to them. Lord Balcarres and his friends, on the other side, earnestly besought his Majesty to accede to the propositions of Westminster, assuring him that the Presbyterians were his true friends, and that his only chance of escape lay in compliance with their demands, but Charles was firm in his refusal. The Duke of Hamilton and the Earl of Crawford-Lindsay were sent to entreat him to save himself by compliance, they prayed in vain. The surrender of the King to the English was vehemently opposed by many who were not the less dissatisfied with his determination to uphold Episcopacy. Balcarres, who was sent once more, in company with other Scottish Commissioners, with their ultimatum, did all in his power to induce his friends to act generously in the matter. George

* Orig. Memorandum, Balcarres Papers, Adv. Lib., tom. ix. No. 118; printed in Baillie's Letters, tom. ii, p. 513.-Lord Balcarres was further charged "to take care that his Majesty by additions or alterations change not the substance of the letter to the Houses, and render the whole business ineffectual," and also to "remember," or represent, “what form King James used in signing the Covenant, and what was the form used by the Earl of Traquair in signing the first Covenant in his Majesty's name, approved afterward by the King himself in Parliament, †They started Sept. 2, 1646. Guthry, p. 230. They started D c. 29, 1646.

Guthry, p. 236; Memoir of Alex. Earl of Bal

carres, MS.

Lord Spynie, like his father, a determined royalist, opposed the measure in Parliament at Edinburgh,*-even Crawford-Lindsay, the President of the Parliament, appealed to the national honour and generosity, and, in signing officially the public warrant of surrender, recorded his solemn protest against it as an individual ;† and had it not been for the bigoted clergy, who decreed mercy in such a case to be crime, not even the zealots to whom this surrender is attributable would have consented to it.

But the surrender was made-with stipulations, it is true, that no harm should be done to the King's person, and that his posterity should be no-way prejudiced in their lawful succession to the throne -but still the King was surrendered, and the payment of a large sum of arrears, due to the Covenanting army by the English, taking place at nearly the same moment, exposed the Scottish nation to the reproach of having sold their King,— a reproach only to be parried (if just) by the pitiful retort, "Who bought him, and who afterwards murdered him?”—It was

* Guthry, p. 238.

After the Restoration, Crawford-Lindsay presented the following paper to the High Commissioner and the Parliament, requiring that its truth should be tried by witnesses, in order that he might stand clear of all individual participation in the transaction :-"The business," says he, "being brought into Parliament, and it being proposed that the question might be whether or no his Majesty should be left at Newcastle, to be disposed of by consent of both kingdoms, I did publicly oppose that state of the question, and proposed another, whether or not his Majesty, who was our native King, and had done so many great things for the good of Scotland, and thrown himself upon us for shelter, should be delivered up to the Sectaries, avowed enemies to his life and government? And having so far as I was able pressed this to be the state of the question, but finding the other was like to carry, and fearing the worst in the decision of it, I did publicly declare, before it came to the vote, that, seeing by my being President I was not to give any vote except the votes of the House had been equal, and that I conceived myself obliged to make my sense thereof known to the world, therefore I did dissassent from the vote, and protested to be free from all the sin, dishonour, and prejudice of delivering up our native sovereign in the hands of his enemies. And after the vote was unhappily passed, I did refuse to sign the same as President, and desired that another President might be chosen. And it being carried, that I should sign the same as President, and that my signing therefore should not include my judgment, I did offer my protestation accordingly.-And this being the truth of my carriage, I shall humbly entreat your Grace and the honourable Parliament to take trial of the same from the testimony of such honourable persons as were present, that thereafter such course may be taken for my just vindication as in justice shall be thought fit." Acts Parl., tom. vii. p. 14, App.-The enquiry was made, and the truth of the above statement substantiated to his satisfaction.

Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 235.

the crime, in fact, of a crew of fanatics on either side, and imputable neither to the one nor the other of the two gallant nations that compose the unity of Great Britain.*

Possessed of the King's person, the English Parliament attempted to dissolve their army, but they had raised a devil they could not lay,-Cromwell marched to London, expelled the Presbyterian members, substituted Independents, and there, and elsewhere, usurped or rather assumed the government. Democracy was now triumphant. Cromwell took the King into his own hands, and committed him to prison. His situation was desperate, and, in a secret interview with the Scottish Commissioners, he consented, alas! too late, to confirm the Covenant, establish Presbyterianism, for a probation, at least, of three years, and unite cordially with the Scots in the extirpation of the "Sectaries," or Independents,―he acquiesced, in a word, in that principle of Constitutional Government which had been at issue between himself and his Scottish subjects since the year 1638. All ground of dispute therefore was at an end between them,— doubts might have arisen, as in 1641, with regard to his sincerity, but it was a moment for action, not hesitation-their King, a Stuart and a Scotsman, stood before them, penitent and in peril of his life-and they forgot all secondary considerations. Their plans were rapidly combined, and, among other arrangements, Lord Balcarres, whose sincerity and honour had probably approved itself to the King during their recent conferences, was appointed by him provisionally to that important trust, the government of the Castle of Edinburgh.‡

* See however some most valuable remarks on this surrender, by Mr. Hallam, in the Appendix, No. IX.

+ "The Scots Presbyterians," observes Mr. Hallam," whatever we may think of their behaviour, were sincerely attached, if not by loyal affection, yet by national pride, to the blood of their ancient Kings. They thought and spoke of Charles as of a headstrong child, to be restrained and chastised, but never cast off. But in England he had absolutely no friends among the prevailing party; many there were who thought monarchy best for the nation, but none who cared for the King.""The Scots," he says elsewhere, "had set their hearts on two things incompatible in themselves from the outset, according to the circumstances of England, and both of them ultimately impracticable,--the continuance of Charles on the throne, and the establishment of a Presbyterian Church."

Grant by Charles I., under the sign manual (Haigh Muniment-room), in the following remarkable terms:-" Our Sovereign Lord, considering that the com

The Commissioners, to whom Charles made these long-wishedfor concessions, assured him of the good will of his Northern subjects, and that they would do their utmost to serve him. It remained however to be seen whether the spirit of 1638 remained unchanged, whether, after ten years of unchecked licence, the Kirk and her ministers would be satisfied with the conditions now extorted,—whether anything short of democracy in Church and State would satisfy them. The result proved, as might have been expected, that the Kirk had become republican to the core, and the news of the treaty with the King no sooner reached Scotland than the Covenanters split into two parties, the one including the great mass of the nation, headed by Crawford-Lindsay and his brother-in-law, the Duke of Hamilton, and professing Constitutional Royalism; the other composed of the ministers and the more fanatic Presbyterians, led by the Earl of Argyle—a small but compact body, who assumed an immediate attitude of distinct and formidable opposition, and were subsequently distinguished by the name of Protesters.

An Engagement, or League, was now proclaimed for the King's rescue, and the nation, with the exception of Argyle and his party, rose as one man in his defence; Cavaliers and Constitutionalists-Spynie, Crawford-Lindsay, and Balcarres—were

mandment and keeping of the Castle of Edinburgh may shortly vaike (become vacant) in his Highness' hands, and be at his Majesty's gift and disposition, either by demission of ... Alexander Earl of Leven, or through and by his decease, &c. ... and willing timeously to provide that the said office be committed and entrusted to such persons as are known and approved by the whole course of their life to be true and faithful subjects to his Majesty, and trusty and weill affected countrymen, natives of the kingdom of Scotland, and tendering the peace and advancement of the true Reformed religion therein presently established and professed, and entertaining of unity betwixt the King and his good subjects; And also, considering that his traist cousin and councillor, Alexander Lord Balcarres, has ever been known and esteemed to be of the quality foresaid, without any exception,-THEREFORE his Majesty, with advice of his Estates of Parliament of his said Kingdom of Scotland (then being sitting), or in the interval of Parliaments, with consent of the Lords and others of his Majesty's Privy Council,.. ordains ane letter immediately after the vaiking of the said office.. to be made under his Majesty's great seal, in due form, nominating and electing.. the said Alexander Lord Balcarres to be Keeper and Captain of the said Castle of Edinburgh.

"Given at our court at Woeburne, 20 July, 1647.

"CHARLES R."

alike eager in the cause.* An army of fourteen thousand men, the whole disposable force of the royalists, was raised and despatched to England under the command of the Duke of Hamilton, and for a moment there seemed every prospect of success. But a few weeks dissipated these hopes,-the Duke was incompetent as a commander, the expedition was wretchedly mismanaged, the army fell to pieces and disappeared, and the Duke was forced to surrender. The result was the ruin of the Constitutional party,† and the succession of Argyle and the Protesters to the dominant power in Scotland. Crawford-Lindsay's fall was the natural and immediate consequence; he was deprived of his offices of High Treasurer, Comptroller of Scotland, Collector-General of the royal revenues, President of the Estates, and Lord of Session,-was confined to his house, under penalty of one hundred thousand marks, voted a

*Acts Parl., tom. vi. p. 295. The endeavours of Hamilton at this juncture to propitiate Argyle and the Protesters created a suspicion among the ultra-loyalists, that he had a secret understanding with them, "and it is affirmed by Guthry," says Mr. Chambers, "that, to efface an impression so unfavourable to his views, he was obliged to get up a mock duel between the Earl of Crawford-Lindsay, one of his friends, and the Marquis of Argyle. The Marquis, pretending to take offence at some equivocal expression which Lindsay used regarding him in Parliament, sent him a challenge, and desired him to appoint a time and place of meeting. Lindsay returned an answer on Sunday evening, informing Argyle that he should meet him next morning at five o'clock on Musselburgh Links. They met there at the time appointed; when, if we are to believe a cavalier historian, 'the redders' whom they had appointed to come up and interfere, failing to appear at the proper time, they were obliged to dally an hour upon the ground, without proceeding to business. Lindsay was perhaps willing and anxious to fight; but, according to Sir James Balfour, another Tory writer, 'all that was of them could not make Argyle fight, till he saw Colonel Haddan, the Chancellor's man, coming to part them; then he was something stout, and refused to subscribe a paper which he would have formerly done, I believe against his will, but which he had been forced either to do, or else to cast off his doublet and boots, which he was wondrous loath to do in respect of the coldness of the weather.' To complete the farce, the Marquis of Argyle was obliged by the commission of the Kirk to perform public repentance before them, 'because he had had such an hostile mind,' and Lindsay was desired to submit to the same degrading ceremony, but refused. The combat, such as it was, and its attendant circumstances, caused great scandal to Argyle's own party, but only furnished matter of sport to the more knowing cavaliers." Hist. Rebellion, tom. ii. p. 188; Guthry, p. 261; Balfour's Annals, tom. iii. p. 395; Baillie's Letters, tom. iii. p. 36.

For Mr. Robert Blair's mediation between the Engagers, represented by Crawford-Lindsay, and Argyle's party, at this moment, and the unsatisfactory result, the Act of Classes, passed 23rd January, 1647, see his Autobiography, continued by Row, p. 208.