Reign of Charles I. (Concluded.) page 4

It will be seen that even yet, we have not established so full and admirable a reform of parliament as this, and the terms regarding the church were such as the king was not likely to obtain from the presbyterians except through the parliament. The whole presented a system of government, which for liberality, broad toleration, wisdom of finance, and judicious balance of power betwixt the different estates of the government, the world had never yet had in idea, far less in example. Charles's own friends and advisers were charmed with it, and flattered themselves that at length they saw a prospect of ending all troubles; but they were quickly undeceived, and struck down in dumb astonishment by Charles rejecting them.

Charles was still the same man; he was at the same moment secretly listening to the overtures of the Scotch commissioners, who were jealous of the army, and instead of seizing the opportunity to be once more a king, and a powerful and beloved king, he was flattering himself with the old idea that he would bring the two great factions "to extirpate each other." Sir John Berkeley, his earnest adviser, says, "What with having so concurring a second as Mr. Ashburnham, and what with the encouraging messages of lord Lauderdale and others from the Presbyterian party and the city of London, who pretended to despise the army, and to oppose them to death, his majesty seemed very much elated; inasmuch that when the proposals were solemnly sent to him, and his concurrence most humbly and earnestly desired, his majesty, not only to the astonishment of Ireton and the rest, but even to mine, entertained them with very tart and bitter discourses, saying sometimes that he would have no man suffer for his sake, and that he repented of nothing so much as the bill against the lord Strafford, which, though most true, was unpleasant for them to hear; that he would have the church established according to law, by the proposals. They replied it was none of their work to do it; that it was enough for them to waive the point, and they hoped enough for his majesty, since he had waived the government of the church in Scotland. His majesty said that he hoped God had forgiven him that sin, and repeated often, 'You cannot be without me; you will fall to ruin if I do not sustain you!'"

It was still the old man! the old intolerable, incorrigible talk. He could not give up a single proposition to save all the rest - his life, his family, his crown, and kingdom. The officers looked at one another in amazement; the king's friends in consternation. Sir John Berkeley whispered in his ear, that his majesty seemed to have some secret strength that they did not know of; on which Charles seemed to recollect himself, and spoke more softly; but it was too late, for colonel Rainsborough, who was least inclined for the pacification, rode to the army, and made known the king's obstinacy. The agitators rushed together in crowds, and, excessively chagrined at the rejection of such terms, burst into the bed-chamber of lord Lauderdale, whom they suspected of having thus perverted the king's mind, and compelled him, spite of his standing in his position as commissioner from the states of Scotland, to rise, and get off back again to the capital.

At this crisis, the alarm at the proceedings in London, and the march upon it just related, took place. Still the officers did not cease their exertions to persuade the king to adopt the proposals; but he was waiting to see what turn affairs would take, and listening at the same time to the Scots and the Irish catholics. This idea was so little concealed, that talking with Ireton, he let slip the observation, "I shall play my game as well as I can." On which Ireton replied, "If your majesty has a game to play, you must give us leave also to play ours." As the bluster of the city it seemed to subside before the approaching army, Charles sent Berkeley to ask the officers, "If he should accept the proposals, what would ensue?" They said, "We will offer them to the parliament." "And if they should reject them, what then?" The rest of the officers hesitating to answer such a question, Rainsborough said bluntly, "If they wont agree, we will make them!" to which all the rest instantly assented. Berkeley carried this decisive answer to Charles, but there, he says, he had very different work; he was just as unconceding as ever. Cromwell and Ireton then begged, that though the king would not sign the proposals, he would at least write a kind letter to the army, which would show the country that they were doing nothing contrary to his majesty's mind. With the co-operation of Berkeley, Ashburnham, and others of the king's friends, they met at Windsor, and drew up such a letter, but they could not prevail on him to sign it till the city had yielded, and it was too late. Still the officers, to show that their triumph had not altered in the least their desire for agreement with the king, again voted the proposals as their terms of settlement. Charles renewed his discussion with them, and was every day sending messages by Ashburnham to Cromwell and Ireton, yet never coming nearer; but, on the other hand, bringing those officers into suspicion with a new and fanatic party which had arisen, which originally called themselves Rationalists, but soon after Levellers.

The levellers were, in fact, a set of men amongst whom Lilburne, now colonel John Lilburne, was a leading character. They had imbibed from the Old Testament, which was their favourite study, a spirit of republicanism combined with a wild fanatic style of language. They found in the remarks on monarchs in the Scriptures, on the election of Saul by Israel, a clear denunciation of all kings, and they declared they would no longer seek after kings who aimed only at absolute power, nor after lords who sought only honours and places, but they would have a free government by a parliament, and a free religion. They drew up a paper called "The Case of the Army," and another called "he Agreement of the People," which were presented to the general and the agitators of the eleven regiments. Religious republicanism was abroad in the army, and they drew up a new constitution, at which a biennial parliament, with six monthly sessions, a widely extended franchise, and a more equally distributed representation, was at the head. There were to be neither king nor lords in their system. Colonels Pride and Rainsborough supported their views: Cromwell and Ireton strenuously opposed them. They were, therefore, immediately the objects of attack, and represented as being in a close and secret compact with the king, the Ahab of the nation, to betray the people. Lilburne was busily employed in writing and printing violent denunciations in flaming style, and strongly garnished with Bible terms. Parliament denounced the doctrines of the levellers as destructive of all government, and ordered the authors to be prosecuted; but Lilburne against John and John against Lilburne was not so easily extinguished.

Whilst this fanatic effervescence had broken out in the army, the presbyterians in parliament and the Scottish commissioners made one effort more for the recovery of their ascendancy. Regarding the religious toleration proposed in the army conditions as something horrible and monstrously wicked, they drew up fresh proposals of their own, and presented them to the king. If Charles could not endure the army proposals, he was not likely to accept those of the presbyterians, who gave no place to his own church at all; and he told them that he liked those of the army better. This answer Berkeley showed to the officers of the army before it was sent; they highly approved of it, and promised to do all they could in the house to get an order voted I for a personal treaty, "and," Berkeley adds, "to my understanding, performed it, for both Cromwell and Ireton, with Vane and all their friends, seconded with great resolution this desire of his majesty." Cromwell, indeed, he says, spoke so zealously in its favour, that it only increased, both in the house and out of it, the suspicion of his having made a compact with the king to restore him. The more the officers argued for a personal treaty, the more the presbyterians in the house opposed it; but at length a resolution was carried for it. It was thought that it would occupy twenty days, but it went on for two months, and came to nothing - other and strange events occurring.

The levellers, after this display of zeal on the part of Cromwell, vowed that they would kill both him and the king, whom they not only styled an Ahab and a Coloquintida, a man of blood, and the everlasting obstacle to I peace and liberty, but demanded his head as the cause of the! murder of thousands of freeborn Englishmen. Cromwell | declared that his life was not safe in his own quarters, and we are assured that Lilburne and another agitator named Wildman had agreed to assassinate him, as a renegade and traitor to liberty. To check this wild and dangerous spirit in the army, Cromwell and Ireton recommended that it should be drawn closer together, and thus more under the immediate discipline of its chief officers. This was agreed upon, and a general rendezvous was appointed to take place at Ware on the 16th of November.

During the interval, Charles was royally lodged at Hampton Court, and was freely permitted to have his children with him, but all the time he was at his usual work of plotting. The marquis of Ormond having surrendered his command in Ireland to the parliament, was come hither, and lord Capel, who had been one of Charles's most distinguished commanders, being also permitted by parliament to return from abroad, a scheme was laid, whilst Charles was amusing the army and parliament with the discussion of the u Proposals," that the next' spring, through the Scottish commissioners, who were also in the plot, a Scottish army should enter England, forty thousand strong, and calling on the presbyterians to join them, should march forward. At the same time Ormond should lead an army from Ireland, whilst Capel summoned the rest of the king's friends in England to join the converging forces, and plant the king on the throne.

But this wholesale conspiracy could not escape the secret agents of Cromwell; the whole was revealed to him, and he bitterly upbraided Ashburnham with the incurable duplicity of his master, who, whilst he was negotiating with the army, was planning its destruction. There appears, moreover, every reason to believe that Cromwell discovered deeper and more personal treason in Charles towards himself. Morrice, in his life of lord Orrery, declares that Cromwell himself related to lord Broghill, that at this crisis, when Cromwell was exerting himself to bring about the agreement with the king, he and Ireton were informed by one of their spies, who belonged to the king's bed-chamber, that their doom was fixed, and that they might convince themselves of it by intercepting a secret messenger of the king's, who would that night sleep at the Blue Boar, in Holborn, and who carried his despatches sewed up in the skirt of his saddle. That Cromwell and Ireton, disguised as troopers, waited that evening, and seized the saddle, where they found a letter in which the king informed the queen that he was now courted by both factions, and that that which bid the highest for him should have him, but he thought he should close with the Scots rather than the other.

This not only agrees with the fact that he was at that moment planning the Scotch invasion, but lord Bolingbroke assured Pope and lord Marchmont, that lord Oxford had often told him that he had seen and handled an original letter that Charles I. wrote to the queen in answer to one of hers that had been intercepted, and then forwarded to him; wherein she had reproached him for having made too great concessions to these villains, namely, that Cromwell should be lieutenant of Ireland for life without account; that that country should be in the hands of the party; and that Cromwell should have a garter, &c. That in this letter of the king's it was said that she might leave him to manage, who was better acquainted with all the circumstances than she could be; but she might be entirely easy as to the concessions he should make, for he should know in due time how to deal with the rogues, who, instead of a silken garter, should be fitted with a hempen cord.

From this moment, whatever was the cause, and the preceding incidents appear both certain and sufficient, Cromwell, Ireton, and the army in general, came to the conclusion that all attempts to bring so double-faced and intriguing a person to any honourable and enduring terms were vain. That if he were restored to power, he would use it to destroy every one who had been compelled to oppose his despotic plans; if he were not restored, they would be in a perpetual state of plot- tings, alarms, and disquietudes, destructive of all comfort or prosperity to the nation. As the officers drew back from further intercourse with the king, the menaces of the levellers became louder; and there were not wanting persons to carry these threats to the king. He saw the levellers growing in violence, and in numbers, in fact, leveller and agitator were synonymous terms; the infection had spread through the greater part of the army. The fact of the officers having been friendly with him, had made them suspicious to the men; they had driven Ireton from the council, and there were loud threats of impeaching Cromwell. Several regiments were in a state of insubordination, and it was doubtful whether, at the approaching rendezvous, Fairfax could maintain the discipline of the army. The reports of the proceedings of the levellers, who really threatened to seize his person to prevent the parliament or officers agreeing with him, and their truculent manifestoes, were all diligently carried to him by the Scottish commissioners, who, according to Berkeley, "were the first that presented his dangers to him." He was assured by Mr. Ackworth, that colonel Rainsborough, the favourite of the levellers, meant to kill him; and Clarendon says that " every day he received little billets or letters, secretly conveyed to him without any name, which advertised him of wicked designs upon his life;" many, he adds, who repaired to him brought the same advice from men of unquestionable sincerity.

Charles resolved to escape, and, as he was in some cases as religiously scrupulous of his word as he was in others reckless of it, he withdrew his promise not to attempt to escape, on the plea that he found himself quite as rigorously watched as if he were not on honour. Colonel Whalley, who commanded his guard, immediately ordered it to be doubled, and dismissed all his servants except Legge, refusing further admittance to him. Notwithstanding this, he found means of communicating with Ashburnham and Berkeley, and consulted with them on the means of escape, and the place to escape to. He proposed the city, and Ashburnham advised him to go to the house of the lord mayor, in London, there to meet the Scottish commissioners, agree with them on their last propositions, and then send for the lords. Berkeley disapproved of this, believing they would not bring over the commons; and then Ashburnham recommended the king to flee to the Isle of Wight, and throw himself on the generosity of colonel Hammond, the governor there. This, he says, he did, because colonel Hammond had a few days before told him he was going down to his government, "because he found the army was resolved to break all promises with the king, and that he would have nothing to with such perfidious actions."