Reign of Charles I. (Concluded.) page 7

At the same time that the Scots began their march, a rising which had been made in concert with Hamilton, took place in London. The earl of Holland, who had become contemptible to all parties, by twice going over to the parliament, and twice falling back to the king, entered London with five hundred horse, and called on the citizens to join him for king Charles. The inhabitants had been too recently punished for their apprentice rising to make a second experiment. Holland fell back, therefore, on Kingston-on-Thames, where he was attacked and defeated by Sir Michael Levesey, and lord Francis Villiers, brother to the young duke of Buckingham, was slain. Holland had induced the brother of Buckingham himself to follow him; the latter escaped to the continent, and returned at the restoration, like most of his party, no better for his experience. Holland and colonel Dalbier retreated to St. Neot's, where a party of soldiers sent by Fairfax from Colchester met them, and took Holland and killed Dalbier, who was cut to pieces by the soldiers on account of his having been a renegade from the parliamentary army.

The fate of the Scottish army decided that of Goring at Colchester- There was nothing further to stand out for; he surrendered at discretion, and was sent to prison to await the award of parliament, with lord Capel, and Hastings, the brother of the earl of Huntingdon; but two of his officers, Sir George Lisle and Sir Charles Lucas, the brother of lord Lucas, and heir to his title and estates, were shot. All sides were growing savage. These two officers fell bravely, and deserved a better fate. Lucas, tearing open his doublet, cried, "Fire, rebels!" and instantly fell. Lisle ran to him, kissed his dead body, and then turning to the soldiers, told them to come nearer. One of them said, "I'll warrant you we shall hit you." He replied, "Friends, I have been nearer, when you have missed me." The death of these noble fellows sullied the fair reputation of Fairfax, who afterwards deeply regretted it.

On the revolt of the ships at Deal, under the command of Rainsborough, whom they left ashore, the parliament appointed the earl of Warwick, the brother of the earl of Holland, but more in the confidence of the reformers, lord admiral of the fleet, and sent him to oppose the insurgent fleet. No sooner was it heard in Paris that the English ships had sailed for Holland, and called on the duke of York to command them, than it was thought highly expedient that the prince of Wales should hasten thither himself and take the command. Accordingly, he travelled in all haste to the Hague, accompanied by prince Rupert, and the lords Hopton and Colepepper. The prince was received with acclamations by the fleet at Helvoetsluys, and with other vessels, making altogether nineteen, he sailed to the coast of England. It was thought by that party that it was best to sail along the English coast, showing their strength for some time, and then to proceed to the mouth of the Thames. At that time the insurrection in Kent was proceeding under Hales, L'Estrange, and the earl of Norwich, which Fairfax soon dealt with at Maidstone; but whilst it was in force the prince might have made a safe descent on the Isle of Wight, and attempted the rescue of his father. The castle of Carisbrook was not strong, and there were few forces besides its garrison in the island; but though Charles anxiously expected the coming of the fleet, and sent repeated messages, no attention was paid to them. For nearly a month the prince had the full command of the coast. Fairfax was engaged with the insurgents at Colchester, and the rest of the army was equally occupied in Wales, and in waiting for the approach of the invasion from Scotland; yet he made no movement whatever for the rescue of his father, which every one would have thought would be the first thing. Many have been the surmises on this head, and the general opinion seems to have been that the relations of the queen and lord Jermyn now were such, that of all things, Charles was not wanted there. Others repel this as a vile and unfounded calumny, which we leave, as not affecting the main current of history, but Clarendon, the great champion of the royal party, himself makes no scruple in stating that there was cause of some kind for not seeking to liberate the king. "It cannot be imagined," he says. "how wonderfully fearful some persons in France were that he should have made his escape, and the dread they had of his coming thither."

Warwick posted himself at the mouth of the Thames, to prevent any advance towards London, or any relief to the city of Colchester; but he did not deem himself strong enough till he should be joined by another fleet under Sir George Ayscough, from Portsmouth. With this arrival Warwick was in a condition to attack the prince's fleet, but he lay still, nor did the prince appear more inclined to assail him. He was satisfied to intercept merchantmen coming into port, and demanding their ransom from the city, This occasioned a brisk correspondence betwixt the city and the prince, under cover of which proposals were made by the prince and his counsellors for the city opening its gates and declaring for the king. But the demand of the prince for ten thousand pounds as ransom of the merchant ships, disgusted the city, and presently after came the news of the total defeat of the Scotch army at Preston. On this the prince sailed away again to Helvoetsluys, without attempting anything more. His fleet, according to Clarendon, like the court and army of his father, was rusted with factions, and so incapable of any decided course of action. But the earl of Warwick did not present a more flattering aspect. Though it is confessed that he was amply strong enough after Ayscough's junction to have beaten the prince, he satisfied himself with watching him off, and following him at a respectful distance to the Dutch coast. He is said there to have persuaded the disappointed sailors to return to the service of the parliament, and thus recovered most of the ships. But the public was greatly dissatisfied with his conduct, and the independents did not hesitate to declare that they were always betrayed by the cowardice or disaffection of noble commanders. The whole war bore striking evidences of this fact; and Clarendon asserts that Warwick had an understanding with his brother Holland, and would almost certainly have gone over had the Scottish invasion succeeded. Clarendon asserts that the parliament of Scotland had sent lord Lauderdale to the Hague, to invite prince Charles to go to Scotland and put himself at the head of affairs there for his father, in order to encourage the endeavour to put down the independents, who were at once hostile to the king and the solemn league and covenant; but that the news of the defeat of Hamilton arriving, defeated that object. By the end of August all the attempts of the royalists were crushed.

The presbyterians took the opportunity whilst Fairfax, Cromwell, and the leading independents were absent with the army, to propose a fresh treaty with Charles. On hearing of this movement, Cromwell wrote to the parliament, to remind it of its vote of non-addresses, and that to break it and make fresh overtures to the king, who would still adhere to his inadmissible demands, would be an eternal disgrace to them. But the immediate defeat of Hamilton so much raised the terror of the presbyterians at the overwhelming weight which this would give to the army and the independent party, that they hastened the business. Charles readily acceded to it, and would fain have obtained his wish of carrying on the negotiation in London, especially as a large party there were urgent for accommodation with him. But the parliament dared not thus far run counter to the victorious army, and a compromise was effected. Charles was permitted to choose any place on the Isle of Wight where the conference should take place, and he decided on the town of Newport. From the parliament five lords, including Northumberland and Pembroke, and ten commoners, including Vane the younger, Grimstone, Hollis, and Pierpont, were appointed commissioners, and on Charles's part appeared the duke of Richmond, the marquis of Hertford, the earls of Southampton and Lindsay, with other gentlemen, and a number of his chaplains and lawyers. These were not admitted to sit with the parliamentary commissioners and the king, were not to interpose any opinions or arguments during the discussion, which were to be direct from Charles; but they were suffered to be in the room behind a curtain, where they could hear all, and to whom Charles was at liberty to retire and consult them. The conditions were the same submitted at Hampton Court, and the king again consented to the surrender of the command of the army for ten years; but he would not accede to the abolition of episcopacy, but merely its suspension for three years; that the episcopal lands should not be forfeited, but granted on long leases, and he would not bind himself to accept the covenant. In fact, he stood just as rooted to his own notions, as if he had even the most distant chance of ever obtaining them. In vain the presbyterians knelt and prayed him with tears to concede, to prevent the utter ruin of both himself and them. The commission met on the 18th of September, and it was limited to the 4th of November; but that time arrived and nothing further was concluded. The commissioners took their leave and proceeded to Cowes, but they were met by a resolution of the commons to prolong the conference to the 21st, which was afterwards extended to the 25th.

There were signs and circumstances enough abroad to have brought any other man to make the best terms he could. On the 11th of September, previous to the meeting of the commission, a petition of many thousands of well- affected men in the cities of London and Westminster, in the borough of Southwark, and the neighbouring villages, "had been presented, praying that justice might be done on the chief author of the great bloodshed which had been perpetrated in the war." They called for the execution of Holland, Hamilton, Capel, Goring, and the rest of the royalist officers now confined at Windsor. Clarendon says, that Capel, at the execution of Lisle and Lucas at Colchester, had spoken so fiercely about it, saying they had better shoot all the rest of the prisoners, and had so upbraided Ireton in particular, to whose vindictive disposition he attributed the bloody deed, that the army was vehement for the death of these men. Numbers of other petitions to the same effect came up from the country and from the regiments, declaring that after so many miraculous deliverances from their treacherous and implacable enemies by the Almighty, it was sinful to delay any longer the punishment of these instruments of cruelty, and especially of the king, the chief offender, the raiser of the war, and the stubborn rejecter of all offers. The army was the more vehement, because one of their most gallant and long-tried leaders, colonel Rains- borough, had been foully murdered by a number of the royalists. After the revolt of the fleet, he was sent to relieve the castle of Pontefract. He had arrived at Doncaster when Sir John Digby and colonel Morrice, who commanded in Pontefract for the king, determined, says Clarendon, "to make a noble attempt." This noble attempt was to get admittance to him on pretence of having a letter to him from Cromwell, and to assassinate him. They proceeded on Sunday, the 29th of October, to Doncaster, with a party of twelve horse. They were readily admitted to the town on the credit of their message, and Digby and Morrice, with one man, went into the room where Rainsborough was in bed, whilst the other horsemen rode on to the bridge leading to the Pontefract road, and held the guard in conversation till their commanders should come. The murderers then went upstairs to Rainsborough, told him he was their prisoner, and that he must choose whether he would go with them or be killed. He rose to go, but in coming out of the house, and not seeing a troop of horse as he expected, but only one man, he immediately cried a rescue, when the assassins thrust him through, and galloping to the bridge, they and their horsemen killed such of the guard as opposed, and rode off. "There was not an officer in the army," Clarendon says, "whom Cromwell would not as willingly have lost as Rainsborough;" and "the gallant party," as he called them, not only gloried in their base deed, but contemplated others of the same kind.

No wonder that the army was become impatient of further tolerance of such an enemy. Colonel Ludlow, who was also a member of parliament, protested that it was time that the country laid to heart the blood spilt, and the rapine perpetrated by commission from the king, and to consider whether the justice of God could be satisfied, or His wrath appeased, if they granted an act of oblivion as the king demanded. No; the blood of murdered thousands cried from the ground; as the Book of Numbers declared, "blood defiled the land, and the land could not be cleansed except by the blood of him who shed it." He failed in converting Fairfax to his creed on this head; but Ireton was a more willing listener, and he joined his regiment in petitioning, on the 18th of October, that crime might be impartially punished, without any distinction of high or low, and that whoever should speak or act in favour of the king, before he had been tried and acquitted of shedding innocent blood, should be adjudged guilty of high treason. The example was followed by several other regiments; on the 21st Ingoldby's regiment petitioned in direct terms for the trial of the king, and declared the treaty at Newport a trap; and on the 16th of November a long and stern remonstrance was addressed by the assembled officers of the army to the house of commons, demanding that "the capital and grand author of all the troubles and woes which the nation had endured, should be speedily brought to justice for the treason, blood, and mischief' of which he had been guilty; that the lords should be abolished, and the supreme power vested in the commons. That if the country desired any more kings, they should be elected by the commons; that a period should be fixed for the close of this parliament; and that any future king should be sworn to govern by the aid of parliament alone." This startling remonstrance was signed by Rushworth, the historian, secretary to Fairfax, the general himself accompanying the remonstrance by a letter. A violent debate upon this re monstrance took place in the house; but Cromwell was now fast advancing to the capital, and the house adjourned.

All these ominous proceedings were lost on Charles; whilst he was negotiating, he was, in his usual manner, secretly corresponding with his party in various quarters, apologising for the smallest concessions, on the principle that he did not mean to abide by them. On the 24th of October, after conceding the command of the army, he wrote to Sir William Hopkins, "To deal freely with you, the great concession I made to-day was merely in order to my escape, of which if I had not hope, I would not have done it." He had written on the 10th of October to Ormond in Ireland, with which country he had agreed to have no further intercourse, telling him that the treaty would come to nothing, and encouraging him privately to prosecute the scheme for a rising there with all his vigour, and to let all his friends know that it was by his command, but not openly, or this would, of course, knock the treaty on the head. But a letter of Ormond's fell into their hands, by which they discovered for what he had been sent over from France to Ireland, and the commissioners would not proceed till Charles had publicly written to deny any authority from him to Ormond. All the while that the negotiations were proceeding, he was expecting the execution of a plan for his escape; and he told Sir Philip Warwick that if his friends could not rescue him by the time he had demanded relief, yet he would hold it, till he had made some stone in that building his tombstone.