Reign of Charles I. (Concluded.) page 3

The struggle betwixt the army and parliament, that is. betwixt the presbyterian and independent interests, was all this time raging. For six weeks the army was advancing or retiring, according as the parliament acted; the parliament only giving way through intimidation. According as the affairs stood, the city was peaceful or in alarm, now shutting all its shops, now much negotiation going on; the army lying still near, and paid more duly, out of terror, by the parliament. At length, the army had so far succeeded as to have the insulting declaration of Hollis, "the blot of ignominy," erased from the journals of the house, and the ordinance of the 4th of May, procured by Hollis, for the placing the militia of the city in more exclusively presbyterian hands, revoked. But towards the end of July, the strong presbyterian element in the city was again in such 'ferment, that it forgot its terrors of the army, and proceeded to daring extremities. The presbyterian faction demanded that conventicles, that is, all meeting-houses of all classes, except presbyterians, should be closed, and called all the citizens to meet in Guildhall, to hear the covenant read, and sign an engagement, soldiers, sailors, citizens, and apprentices, to drive away the army and bring the king to Westminster, and make a treaty with him. A hundred thousand signatures were put to this paper; and had the courage been half as great as the bluster, the army had been swept to destruction. On the 26th of July, a few days afterwards, a vast rabble surrounded the houses of parliament, calling on both lords and commons to restore the order regarding the city militia; they crowded into the houses with their hats on, crying, "Vote! vote!" and their numbers keeping the doors open. Under this intimidation both lords and commons voted the restoration of the Presbyterian ordinance for the change of the militia, and adjourned to Friday.

On Friday the two houses met, but were astonished to find that their speakers had fled, accompanied by several members of both houses, and were gone to the army. It was found that Sir Henry Vane, the earl of Northumberland, the earl of Warwick, and other lords and commoners, were gone. Had it been only Sir Henry Vane and the Independents who had gone, it would have astonished nobody; but neither Lenthal, the speaker of the commons, nor the earl of Manchester, the speaker of the lords, were suspected of any great leaning to the army, whilst "Warwick was a stanch Presbyterian, and Northumberland so much in the favour of that party, as to have the care of his royal children. This circumstance showed the violence of the mob which had forced parliament, and rendered moderate men resolved to escape rather than submit to be its puppets. There were no less than fifteen lords and a hundred commoners who had thus resented mob intimidation.

On making this lamentable discovery, the two houses elected temporary speakers, and issued orders forbidding the army to advance, recalling the eleven fugitive members, and ordered Massey, Waller, and Poyntz, to call out the city militia, and defend the city.

No sooner had Fairfax heard the news of these proceedings, than he instantly sent the king to Hampton Court, and marched from Bedford to Hounslow Heath, where he ordered a general rendezvous of the whole army. On Hounslow Heath, at the appointed rendezvous, the speakers of the two houses, with their maces, and attended by the fugitive lords and commons, stated to the general that they had not freedom in Westminster, but were in danger of their lives from tumult, and claimed the protection of the army. The general and the officers received the speakers and members with profound respect, and assured them they would reinstate them in their proper places, or perish in the attempt. Nothing, in fact, could have been such a God-send to the army, for besides their own grievances, they had the grievances of the coerced members to redress, and the sanctity of parliament to defend. They ordered the most careful accommodations for the comfort of the members, and a guard to attend them, consulting them on all their measures. Fairfax quartered his army about Hounslow, Brentford, Twickenham, and the adjacent villages, at the same time ordering colonel Rainsborough to cross the Thames at Hampton Court with a brigade of horse and foot, and cannon, and to secure Southwark and the works which covered the end of London Bridge.

Meantime, never was London in a more terrible confusion. The commons having no mace of their own, sent for the city mace. The colonels were in all haste calling out the militia. On Saturday and Monday the shops were all shut, nothing going on but enlisting and mustering. St. James's fields were all in a stir with drilling and manoeuvring; news constantly coming of the approach of the army. "Massey," says Whitelock, "sent out scouts to Brentford; but ten men of the army beat thirty of his, and took a flag from them. The city militia and common council sate late, and a great number of people attended at Guildhall. When a scout came in and brought news that the army made a halt, or other good intelligence, they cried, 'One and all!' But if the scouts brought word that the army was advancing, then they would cry as loud, 'Treat! treat! treat!' and thus they spent the night."

Tuesday, August the 3rd, was a fearful day. The people of Southwark declared that they would not fight against the army, and went in crowds to Guildhall, demanding peace, at which Poyntz lost all patience, drew his sword, and slashed many of them, some mortally.

The Southwarkers kept their word, for they received Rainsborough and his troops; the militia openly fraternised with the soldiers, shaking hands with them through the gates, and abandoned the works which protected the city to them. Rainsborough took possession, without opposition, of all the forts and works on that side of the river from Southwark to Gravesend. In the morning the authorities of the city, finding that Southwark was in possession of the army, and the city gate on that side in their hands, they were completely prostrated, and hastened to make their submission. Poyntz, accustomed to conquest in the field, and the hardihood of the presbyterian soldiers, was filled with contempt for these cringing, cowering citizens. What! had they not ten thousand men in arms, a loan ef ten thousand pounds on foot, and orders to raise auxiliary troops to the amount of eighteen regiments! Had they not plenty of ammunition and arms in the Tower, whence they had drawn four hundred barrels of gunpowder, and other material for present defence? But all availed not; the citizens hastened to lay themselves and the city at the feet of Fairfax. He had fixed his headquarters at Hammersmith, but he met the civic authorities at Holland House, Kensington, where he dictated the following conditions: - That they should abandon the parliament now sitting and the eleven impeached members; should restore the militia to the independents; surrender all their forts, including the Tower; recall their declarations, and conduct themselves peaceably.

On Friday, the 6th of August, Fairfax entered the city, preceded by a regiment of infantry and another of cavalry. He was on horseback, attended by his body-guards and a crowd of gentlemen. A long train of carriages, containing the fugitive speakers and members, lords and commons, followed, and then another regiment of cavalry. The soldiers marched three abreast, with boughs of laurel in their hats. The late turbulent multitudes completed their shame by raising forced acclamations as they passed. Fairfax thus proceeded through Hyde Park, where the corporation met him, and offered him a great gold cup, which he curtly declined, and so rode on to the houses of parliament, where he replaced the speakers in their respective chairs, and the members in their old places. Not one of the lords, who had remained, except the earl of Pembroke, ventured to appear, and he declared that he considered all the proceedings since the departure of the speakers as null. No sooner were the speakers in their places, than they voted thanks to the general and the army; made Fairfax commander of all the forces in England and Wales, and constable of the Tower. It ordered a gratuity of a months' pay for the army, and that the city militia should be divided, and Southwark, Westminster, and the Tower Hamlets should command their own. The lords voted all acts of parliament from the departure of the speakers on the 26th of June, to their return on the 6th of August, void; but the resolution did not pass the commons, where there was a large body of presbyterians, without much opposition.

The eleven impeached members fled, and were allowed to escape into France, whereupon they were voted guilty of high treason, as well as the lord mayor and four aldermen of London, two officers of the trained-band, and the earls of Suffolk, Lincoln, and Middleton, the lords Willoughby, Hunsdon, Berkeley, and Maynard. The civic officers were sent to the Tower. The city was ordered to find the one hundred thousand pounds voted for the army. Fairfax distributed different regiments about Whitehall and the houses of parliament for their protection, and others in the Strand, Holborn, and Southwark, to keep the city in quiet. His headquarters were, moved to Putney, with forces at Chelsea and Fulham, On Sunday he and the officers attended the preaching of Hugh Peters, the army chaplain, at Putney Church, and thus the independents were in full power, and the presbyterians signally humbled.

Before, and also whilst these events had been taking place, the army had made overtures to the king for peace, and a solid settlement of the kingdom. As we have seen, from the moment that the king came into their hands, they had treated him in a far different style to the presbyterians lie seemed, in his freedom of action, in the admission of his children and friends to his society, in the respect and even friendliness shown him, to feel himself a king again. There were many reasons why the independents should desire to close with the king. Though they had the army with them, they knew that the presbyterians were far more numerous. London was vehemently presbyterian, and the Scots were ready to back that party, because essentially the same in religion as themselves. The independents and all the dissenters who ranged themselves under their banners were anxious for religious liberty; the Scotch and English presbyterians had no more idea of such a thing as belonging to Christianity, than had the catholics or the church of England as represented by Charles and Laud. If they prevailed, a despotism, as iron and as illiberal, would be established, as that which they had fought to put down; nay, far more so, for it was a despotism based on a sour and ascetic view of religion, which had no taste or tolerance for the elegancies of life, or the intellectual amenities of literature. To a faith so gloomy and crabbed, Shakespeare was a godless stage- player, and Sydney and Spenser high priests of Baal, of vain and carnal imaginations. To save England from a regimen so barbarous, a fanaticism so curdling and congelant of all the nobler feelings and sunnier views of life and even of religion, was an object of extreme desire to all those who, with their own high tone of zeal and language, began to see the ampler light and breathe the milder atmosphere of Christ's gentle and beneficent faith.

From the moment that the king was received by the army, he seems to have won on the goodwill of the officers. Fairfax, on meeting him on his way from Holmby, kissed his hand, and treated him with all the deference due to the sovereign. Cromwell and Ireton, though they did not so far condescend, and kept a degree of distant reserve, as remembering that they had to treat Charles as an enemy, were soon softened, and Cromwell sent him assurances of his attachment, and of his desire to see his affairs set right. Many of the officers openly expressed commiseration of his misfortunes, and admiration of his real piety, and his amiable domestic character. It was not long before such relations were established with him, and with his confidential friends, Berkeley, Ashburnham, and Legge, that secret negotiations were commenced for a settlement of all the difficulties betwixt him and his people. The officers made him several public addresses expressive of their sincere desire to see a pacification effected; and Fairfax, to prepare the way, addressed a letter to the two houses, repelling the aspersion cast upon the army, of its being hostile to the monarchy, and avowing that "tender, equitable, and moderate dealings towards him, his family, and his former adherents," should be adopted to heal the feuds of the nation.

It has been the fashion to consider Cromwell as a consummate hypocrite, and to regard all that he did as a part acted, for the ultimate attainment of his own ends. This is the view which Clarendon has taken of him; but whatever he might do at a later period, everything shows that at this time both he and his brother officers were most really in earnest, and, could Charles have been brought to subscribe to any terms except such as gave up the nation to his uncontrolled will, at this moment his troubles would have been at an end, and he would have found himself on a constitutional throne, with every means of honour and happiness in his power. Nothing more convincingly demonstrates this than the conditions which the parliament submitted to them. They, in fact, greatly resembled the celebrated conditions of peace offered at Uxbridge, with several propositions regarding parliament and taxation, which mark a wonderfully improved political knowledge and liberality in the officers. They did not even insist on the abolition of the hierarchy, but merely stipulated for the toleration of the other opinion, taking away all penalties for not attending church, and for attending what were called conventicles. The command of the army by parliament was to be restricted to ten years; only five of the royalist adherents were to be excluded from pardon, and some less objectionable mode for protecting the state against catholic designs than the present oppressive laws against recusants was to be devised.

Parliaments were to continue two years, unless dissolved earlier by their own consent, and were to sit every year for a prescribed term, or a shorter one, if business permitted. Rotten boroughs, or such as were insignificant, were to be disfranchised, and a greater number of members returned from the counties in proportion to the amount of rates, and all that regarded election of members or reforms of the commons should belong exclusively to the commons. There were very judicious regulations for the nomination of sheriffs and of magistrates; the excise was to be taken from all articles of fife at once, and from all other articles very shortly; the land tax to be fairly and equally apportioned; the irritating maintenance of the clergy by tithes was to be done away with; suits at law to be made less expensive; all men to be made liable for their debts; and insolvent debtors, who had surrendered all their property to their creditors, were to be discharged.