first taking the covenant (8th November, 1645). This was
followed by a third ordinance for establishing the
Presbyterian system of Church government in England by way of
trial for three years. As originally introduced into the
House, this ordinance met with great opposition, because it
gave power to ministers of refusing the sacrament and turning
men out of the Church for scandalous offences. Now, in what,
argued the Erastians, did scandalous offences consist? ... A
modified ordinance accordingly was passed; scandalous
offences, for which ministers might refuse the sacrament and
excommunicate, were specified; assemblies were declared
subject to Parliament, and leave was granted to those who
thought themselves unjustly sentenced, to appeal right up from
one Church assembly after another to the civil power--the
Parliament (16th March, 1646). Presbyterians, both in England
and Scotland, felt deeply mortified. After all these years'
contending, then, just when they thought they were entering on
the fruits of their labours, to see the Church still left
under the power of the State--the disappointment was intense
to a degree we cannot estimate. They looked on the
Independents as the enemies of God; this 'lame Erastian
Presbytery' as hardly worth the having. ... The Assembly of
Divines practically came to an end in 1649, when it was
changed into a committee for examining candidates for the
Presbyterian ministry. It finally broke up without any formal
dismissal on the dispersion of the Rump Parliament in March,
1653."
B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts,
King and Commonwealth,
chapter 9.
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
History of the Great Civil War.
chapter 40 (volume 2).
A. F. Mitchell,
The Westminster Assembly,
lectures 7, 9, 13.
Minutes of the Sessions of the Westminster Assembly.
See, also, INDEPENDENTS.
{877}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1646-1647.
The King in the hands of the Scots.
His duplicity and his intrigues.
The Scots surrender him.
"On the morning of May 6th authentic news came that the King
had ridden into the Scottish army, and had entrusted to his
northern subjects the guardianship of his royal person.
Thereupon the English Parliament at once asserted their right
to dispose of their King so long as he was on English soil;
and for the present ordered that he be sent to Warwick Castle,
an order, however, which had no effect. Newark, impregnable
even to Ironsides, was surrendered at last by royal order; and
the Scots retreated northwards to Newcastle, carrying their
sovereign with them. ... Meantime the City Presbyterians were
petitioning the House to quicken the establishment of the
godly and thorough reformation so long promised; and they were
supported by letters from the Scottish Parliament, which, in
the month of February, 1646, almost peremptorily required that
the Solemn League and Covenant should be carried out in the
Scottish sense of it. ... The question as to the disposal of
the King's person became accidentally involved in the issues
between Presbyterianism and the sects. For if the King had
been a man to be trusted, and if he had frankly accepted the
army programme of free religion, a free Parliament, and
responsible advisers, there is little doubt that he might have
kept his crown and his Anglican ritual--at least for his own
worship--and might yet have concluded his reign prosperously
as the first constitutional King of England. Instead of this,
he angered the army by making their most sacred purposes mere
cards in a game, to be played or held as he thought most to
his own advantage in dealing with the Presbyterian Parliament.
On July 11th, 1646, Commissioners from both Houses were
appointed to lay certain propositions for peace before the
King at Newcastle. These of course involved everything for
which the Parliament had contended, and in a form developed
and exaggerated by the altered position of affairs. All armed
forces were to be absolutely under the control of Parliament
for a period of 20 years. Speaking generally, all public acts
done by Parliament, or by its authority, were to be confirmed;
and all public acts done by the King or his Oxford
anti-Parliament, without due authorisation from Westminster,
were to be void. ... On August 10th the Commissioners who had
been sent to the King returned to Westminster. ... The King
had given no distinct answer. It was a suspicious circumstance
that the Duke of Hamilton had gone into Scotland, especially
as Cromwell learned that, in spite of an ostensible order from
the King, Montrose's force had not been disbanded. The
labyrinthine web of royal intrigue in Ireland was beginning to
be discovered. ... The death of the Earl of Essex on September
14th increased the growing danger of a fatal schism in the
victorious party. The Presbyterians had hoped to restore him
to the head of the army, and so sheathe or blunt the terrible
weapon they had forged and could not wield. They were now left
without a man to rival in military authority the commanders
whose exploits overwhelmed their employers with a too complete
success. Not only were the political and religious opinions of
the soldiers a cause of anxiety, but the burden of their
sustenance and pay was pressing heavily on the country. ... No
wonder that the City of London, always sensitive as to public
security, began to urge upon the Parliament the necessity for
diminishing or disbanding the army in England. ... The
Parliament, however, could not deal with the army, for two
reasons; First, the negotiations with the Scotch lingered; and
next, they could not pay the men. The first difficulty was
overcome, at least for the time, by the middle of January,
1647, when a train of wagons carried £200,000 to Newcastle in
discharge of the English debt to the Scottish army. But the
successful accomplishment of this only increased the remaining
difficulty of the Parliament--that of paying their own
soldiers. We need not notice the charge made against the
Scotch of selling their King further than to say, that it is
unfairly based upon only one subordinate feature of a very
complicated negotiation. If the King would have taken the
Covenant, and guaranteed to them their precious Presbyterian
system, his Scottish subjects would have fought for him almost
to the last man. The firmness of Charles in declining the
Covenant for himself is, no doubt, the most creditable point
in his resistance. But his obstinacy in disputing the right of
two nations, in their political establishment of religion, to
override his convictions by their own, illustrates his entire
incapacity to comprehend the new light dawning on the
relations of sovereign and people. The Scots did their best
for him. They petitioned him, they knelt to him, they preached
to him. ... But to have carried with them an intractable man
to form a wedge of division amongst themselves, at the same
time that he brought against them the whole power of England,
would have been sheer insanity. Accordingly, they made the
best bargain they could both for him and themselves; and,
taking their wages, they left him with his English subjects,
who conducted him to Holdenby House, in Northamptonshire, on
the 6th of February, 1647."
J. A. Picton,
Oliver Cromwell,
chapter 13.
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
The First two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution,
chapter 7, section 4.
S. R. Gardiner,
History of the Great Civil War,
chapter 3845 (volume 2).
W. Godwin,
History of the Commonwealth, book 1,
chapters 24-27, and book 2,
chapter 1-6 (volume 2).
Earl of Clarendon,
History of chapter Rebellion,
book 9, section 161-178,
and book 10 (volume 3).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1647 (APRIL-AUGUST).
The Army takes things in hand.
The King was surrendered to Parliament, and all now looking
toward peace, the Presbyterians were uppermost, discredit
falling upon the Army and its favorers. Many of the Recruiters
[i. e., the new members, elected to fill vacancies in the
Parliament], who at first had acted with the Independents,
inclined now to their opponents. The Presbyterians, feeling
that none would dare to question the authority of Parliament,
pushed energetically their policy as regards the Army, of
sending to Ireland, disbanding, neglecting the payment of
arrears, and displacing the old officers. But suddenly there
came for them a rude awakening. On April 30, 1647, Skippon,
whom all liked, whom the Presbyterians indeed claimed, but who
at the same time kept on good terms with the Army and
Independents, rose in his place in St. Stephens and produced a
letter, brought to him the day before by three private
soldiers, in which eight regiments of horse expressly refused
to serve in Ireland, declaring that it was a perfidious design
to separate the soldiers from the officers whom they
loved,--framed by men who, having tasted of power, were
degenerating into tyrants. Holles and the Presbyterians were
thunder-struck, and laying aside all other business summoned
the three soldiers to appear at once. ...
{878}
A violent tumult arose in the House. The Presbyterians
declared that the three sturdy Ironsides standing there, with
their buff stained from their corselets, ought to be at once
committed; to which it was answered, that if there were to be
commitment, it should be to the best London tavern, and sack
and sugar provided. Cromwell, leaning over toward Ludlow, who
sat next to him, and pointing to the Presbyterians, said that
those fellows would never leave till the Army pulled them out
by the ears. That day it became known that there existed an
organization, a sort of Parliament, in the Army, the officers
forming an upper council and the representatives of the rank
and file a lower council. Two such representatives stood in
the lower council for each squadron or troop, known as
'Adjutators,' aiders, or 'Agitators.' This organization had
taken upon itself to see that the Army had its rights. ... At
the end of a month, there was still greater occasion for
astonishment. Seven hundred horse suddenly left the camp, and
appearing without warning, June 2, at Holmby House, where
Charles was kept, in charge of Parliamentary commissioners,
proposed to assume the custody of the King. A cool, quiet
fellow, of rank no higher than that of cornet, led them and
was their spokesman, Joyce. 'What is your authority?' asked
the King. The cornet simply pointed to the mass of troopers at
his back. ... So bold a step as the seizure of the King made
necessary other bold steps on the part of the Army. Scarcely a
fortnight had passed, when a demand was made for the exclusion
from Parliament of eleven Presbyterians, the men most
conspicuous for extreme views. The Army meanwhile hovered,
ever ominously, close at hand, to the north and east of the
city, paying slight regard to the Parliamentary prohibition to
remain at a distance. The eleven members withdrew. ... But if
Parliament was willing to yield, Presbyterian London and the
country round about were not, and in July broke out into sheer
rebellion. ... The Speakers of the Lords and Commons, at the
head of the strength of the Parliament, fourteen Peers and one
hundred Commoners, betook themselves to Fairfax, and on August
2 they threw themselves into the protection of the Army at
Hounslow Heath, ten miles distant. A grand review took place.
The consummate soldier, Fairfax, had his troops in perfect
condition, and they were drawn out 20,000 strong to receive
the seceding Parliament. The soldiers rent the air with shouts
in their behalf, and all was made ready for a most impressive
demonstration. On the 6th of August, Fairfax marched his
troops in full array through the city, from Hammersmith to
Westminster. Each man had in his hat a wreath of laurel. The
Lords and Commons who had taken flight were escorted in the
midst of the column; the city officials joined the train. At
Westminster the Speakers were ceremoniously reinstalled, and
the Houses again put to work, the first business being to
thank the General and the veterans who had reconstituted them.
The next day, with Skippon in the centre and Cromwell in the
rear, the Army marched through the city itself, a heavy tramp
of battle-seasoned platoons, at the mere sound of which the
war-like ardor of the turbulent youths of the work-shops and
the rough watermen was completely squelched. Yet the soldiers
looked neither to the right nor left; nor by act, word, or
gesture was any offence given."
J. K. Hosmer,
Life of Young Sir Henry Vane,
chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
C. R. Markham,
Life of the Great Lord Fairfax,
chapter 24.
T. Carlyle,
Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,
part 3, letter 26.
W. Godwin,
History of the Commonwealth,
book 2, chapter 7-11.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1647 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).
The King's "Game" with Cromwell and the army,
and the ending of it.
After reinstating the Parliament at Westminster, "the army
leaders resumed negotiations with the King. The indignation of
the soldiers at his delays and intrigues made the task hourly
more difficult; but Cromwell ... clung to the hope of
accommodation with a passionate tenacity. His mind,
conservative by tradition, and above all practical in temper,
saw the political difficulties which would follow on the
abolition of Royalty, and in spite of the King's evasions, he
persisted in negotiating with him. But Cromwell stood almost
alone; the Parliament refused to accept Ireton's proposals as
a basis of peace, Charles still evaded, and the army then grew
restless and suspicious. There were cries for a wide reform,
for the abolition of the House of Peers, for a new House of
Commons, and the Adjutators called on the Council of Officers
to discuss the question of abolishing Royalty itself. Cromwell
was never braver than when he faced the gathering storm, forbade
the discussion, adjourned the Council, and sent the officers
to their regiments. But the strain was too great to last long,
and Charles was still resolute to 'play his game.' He was, in
fact, so far from being in earnest in his negotiations with
Cromwell and Ireton, that at the moment they were risking
their lives for him he was conducting another and equally
delusive negotiation with the Parliament. ... In the midst of
his hopes of an accommodation, Cromwell found with
astonishment that he had been duped throughout, and that the
King had fled [November 11, 1647]. ... Even Cromwell was
powerless to break the spirit which now pervaded the soldiers,
and the King's perfidy left him without resource. 'The King is
a man of great parts and great understanding,' he said at
last, 'but so great a dissembler and so false a man that he is
not to be trusted.' By a strange error, Charles had made his
way from Hampton Court to the Isle of Wight, perhaps with some
hope from the sympathy of Colonel Hammond, the Governor of
Carisbrooke Castle, and again found himself a prisoner. Foiled
in his effort to put himself at the head of the new civil war, he
set himself to organize it from his prison; and while again
opening delusive negotiations with the Parliament, he signed a
secret treaty with the Scots for the invasion of the realm.
The rise of Independency, and the practical suspension of the
Covenant, had produced a violent reaction in his favour north
of the Tweed. ... In England the whole of the conservative
party, with many of the most conspicuous members of the Long
Parliament at its head, was drifting, in its horror of the
religious and political changes which seemed impending, toward
the King; and the news from Scotland gave the signal for
fitful insurrections in almost every quarter."
J. R. Green,
Short History of England,
chapter 8, section 8.
ALSO IN:
F. P. Guizot,
History of the English Revolution of 1640,
books 7-8.
L. von Ranke,
History of England, 17th Century,
book 10, chapter 4.
W. Godwin,
History of the Commonwealth.
G. Hillier,
Narrative of attempted Escapes of Charles I. from
Carisbrooke Castle, &c.
{879}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (April-August).
The Second Civil War.
Defeat of the Scots at Preston.
"The Second Civil War broke out in April, and proved to be a
short but formidable affair. The whole of Wales was speedily
in insurrection; a strong force of cavaliers were mustering in
the north of England; in Essex, Surrey, and the southern
counties various outbreaks arose; Berwick, Carlisle, Chester,
Pembroke, Colchester, were held for the king; the fleet
revolted; and 40,000 men were ordered by the Parliament of
Scotland to invade England. Lambert was sent to the north;
Fairfax to take Colchester; and Cromwell into Wales, and
thence to join Lambert and meet the Scotch. On the 24th of May
Cromwell reached Pembroke, but being short of guns, he did not
take it till 11th July. The rising in Wales crushed, Cromwell
turned northwards, where the northwest was already in revolt,
and 20,000 Scots, under the Duke of Hamilton, were advancing
into the country. Want of supplies and shoes, and sickness,
detained him with his army, some 7,000 strong, 'so extremely
harassed with hard service and long marches, that they seemed
rather fit for a hospital than a battle.' Having joined
Lambert in Yorkshire he fought the battle of Preston on 17th
of August. The battle of Preston was one of the most decisive
and important victories ever gained by Cromwell, over the most
numerous enemy he ever encountered, and the first in which he
was in supreme command. ... Early on the morning of the 17th
August, Cromwell, with some 9,000 men, fell upon the army of
the Duke of Hamilton unawares, as it proceeded southwards in a
long, straggling, unprotected line. The invaders consisted of
17,000 Scots and 7,000 good men from northern counties. The
long ill-ordered line was cut In half and rolled back northward
and southward, before they even knew that Cromwell was
upon them. The great host, cut into sections, fought with
desperation from town to town. But for three days it was one
long chase and carnage, which ended only with the exhaustion
of the victors and their horses. Ten thousand prisoners were
taken. 'We have killed we know not what,' writes Cromwell,
'but a very great number; having done execution upon them
above thirty miles together, besides what we killed in the two
great fights.' His own loss was small, and but one superior
officer. ... The Scottish invaders dispersed, Cromwell
hastened to recover Berwick and Carlisle, and to restore the
Presbyterian or Whig party in Scotland."
F. Harrison,
Oliver Cromwell,
chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
J. H. Burton,
History of Scotland,
chapter 74 (volume 7).
Earl of Clarendon,
History of the Rebellion,
book 11 (volume 4).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).
The Treaty at Newport.
"The unfortunate issue of the Scots expedition under the duke
of Hamilton, and of the various insurrections throughout
England, quelled by the vigilance and good conduct of Fairfax
and Cromwell, is well known. But these formidable
manifestations of the public sentiment in favour of peace with
the king on honourable conditions, wherein the city of London,
ruled by the presbyterian ministers, took a share, compelled
the house of commons to retract its measures. They came to a
vote, by 165 to 90, that they would not alter the fundamental
government by king, lords, and commons; they abandoned their
impeachment against seven peers, the most moderate of the
upper house and the most obnoxious to the army: they restored
the eleven members to their seats; they revoked their
resolutions against a personal treaty with the king, and even
that which required his assent by certain preliminary
articles. In a word the party for distinction's sake called
presbyterian, but now rather to be denominated constitutional,
regained its ascendancy. This change in the counsels of
parliament brought on the treaty of Newport. The treaty of
Newport was set on foot and managed by those politicians of
the house of lords, who, having long suspected no danger to
themselves but from the power of the king, had discovered,
somewhat of the latest, that the crown itself was at stake,
and that their own privileges were set on the same cast.
Nothing was more remote from the intentions of the earl of
Northumberland, or lord Say, than to see themselves pushed
from their seats by such upstarts as Ireton and Harrison; and
their present mortification afforded a proof how men reckoned
wise in their generation become the dupes of their own
selfish, crafty, and pusillanimous policy. They now grew
anxious to see a treaty concluded with the king. Sensible that
it was necessary to anticipate, if possible, the return of
Cromwell from the north, they implored him to comply at once
with all the propositions of parliament, or at least to yield
in the first instance as far as he meant to go. They had not,
however, mitigated in any degree the rigorous conditions so
often proposed; nor did the king during this treaty obtain any
reciprocal concession worth mentioning in return for his
surrender of almost all that could be demanded."
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 10, part 2.
The utter faithlessness with which Charles carried on these
negotiations, as on all former occasions, was shown at a later
day when his correspondence came to light. "After having
solemnly promised that all hostilities in Ireland should
cease, he secretly wrote to Ormond (October 10): 'Obey my
wife's orders, not mine, until I shall let you know I am free
from all restraint; nor trouble yourself about my concessions
as to Ireland; they will not lead to anything;' and the day on
which he had consented to transfer to parliament for twenty
years the command of the army (October 9), he wrote to sir
William Hopkins: 'To tell you the truth, my great concession
this morning was made only with a view to facilitate my
approaching escape; without that hope, I should never have
yielded in this manner. If I had refused, I could, without
much sorrow, have returned to my prison; but as it is, I own
it would break my heart, for I have done that which my escape
alone can justify.' The parliament, though without any exact
information, suspected all this perfidy; even the friends of
peace, the men most affected by the king's condition, and most
earnest to save him, replied but hesitatingly to the charges
of the independents."
F. P. Guizot,
History of the English Revolution of 1640,
book 8.
ALSO IN:
Earl of Clarendon,
History of the Rebellion,
book 11, sections 153-190 (volume 4).
I. Disraeli,
Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles I.,
volume 2, chapters 39-40.
{880}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).
The Grand Army Remonstrance and Pride's Purge.
The Long Parliament cut down to the Rump.
On the 20th of November, 1648, Colonel Ewer and other officers
presented to the house of commons a remonstrance from the Army
against the negotiations and proposed treaty with the king.
This was accompanied by a letter from Fairfax, stating that it
had been voted unanimously in the council of officers, and
entreating for it the consideration of parliament. The
remonstrance recommended an immediate ending of the treaty
conferences at Newport, demanded that the king be brought to
justice, as the capital source of all grievances, and called
upon parliament to enact its own dissolution, with provision
for the electing and convening of future annual or biennial
parliaments. Ten days passed without attention being given to
this army manifesto, the house having twice adjourned its
consideration of the document. On the first of December there
appeared at Newport a party of horse which quietly took
possession of the person of the king, and conveyed him to
Hurst Castle, "a fortress in Hampshire, situated at the
extreme point of a neck of land, which shoots into the sea
towards the isle of Wight." The same day on which this was
done, "the commissioners who had treated with the king at
Newport made their appearance in the two houses of parliament;
and the two following days were occupied by the house of
commons in an earnest debate as to the state of the
negotiation. Vane was one of the principal speakers against
the treaty; and Fiennes, who had hitherto ranked among the
independents, spoke for it. At length, after the house had sat
all night, it was put and carried, at five in the morning of
the 5th, by a majority of 129 to 83, that the king's answers
to the propositions of both houses were a ground for them to
proceed upon, to the settlement of the peace of the kingdom.
On the same day this vote received the concurrence of the
house of lords." Meantime, on the 30th of November, the
council of the army had voted a second declaration more fully
expressive of its views and announcing its intention to draw
near to London, for the accomplishment of the purposes of the
remonstrance. "On the 2d of December Fairfax marched to
London, and quartered his army at Whitehall, St. James's, the
Mews, and the villages near the metropolis. ... On the 5th of
December three officers of the army held a meeting with three
members of parliament, to arrange the plan by which the sound
members might best be separated from those by whom their
measures were thwarted, and might peaceably be put in
possession of the legislative authority. The next morning a
regiment of horse, and another of foot were placed as a guard
upon the two houses, Skippon, who commanded the city-militia,
having agreed with the council of the army to keep back the
guard under his authority which usually performed that duty. A
part of the foot were ranged in the Court of Requests, upon
the stairs, and in the lobby leading to the house of commons.
Colonel Pride was stationed near the door, with a list in his
hand of the persons he was commissioned to arrest; and
sometimes one of the door-keepers, and at others Lord Grey of
Groby, pointed them out to him, as they came up with an
intention of passing into the house. Forty-one members were
thus arrested. ... On the following day more members were
secured, or denied entrance, amounting, with those of the day
before, to about one hundred. At the same time Cromwell took
his seat; and Henry Marten moved that the speaker should
return him thanks for his great and eminent services performed
in the course of the campaign. The day after, the two houses
adjourned to the 12th. During the adjournment many of the
members who had been taken into custody by the military were
liberated. ... Besides those who were absolutely secured, or
shut out from their seats by the power of the army, there were
other members that looked with dislike on the present
proceedings, or that considered parliament as being under
force, and not free in their deliberations, who voluntarily
abstained from being present at their sittings and debates."
W. Godwin,
History of the Commonwealth,
book 2, chapters 23-24 (volume 2).
"The famous Pride's Purge was accomplished. By military force
the Long Parliament was cut down to a fraction of its number,
and the career begins of the mighty 'Rump,' so called in the
coarse wit of the time because it was 'the sitting part.'"
J. K. Hosmer,
Life of Young Sir Henry Vane,
chapter 13.
"This name [the Rump] was first given to them by Walker, the
author of the History of Independency, by way of derision, in
allusion to a fowl all devoured but the rump."
D. Neal,
History of the Puritans,
volume 4, chapter 1, foot-note.
ALSO IN:
C. R Markham,
Life of the Great Lord Fairfax,
chapter 28.
D. Masson,
Life of John Milton,
book 4, chapters 1 and 3 (volume 3).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (JANUARY).
The trial and execution of the King.
"During the month in which Charles had remained at Windsor
[whither he had been brought from Hurst Castle on the 17th of
December], there had been proceedings in Parliament of which
he was imperfectly informed. On the day he arrived there, it
was resolved by the Commons that he should be brought to
trial. On the 2nd of January, 1649, it was voted that, in
making war against the Parliament, he had been guilty of
treason; and a High Court was appointed to try him. One
hundred and fifty commissioners were to compose the Court,--
peers, members of the Commons, aldermen of London. The
ordinance was sent to the Upper House, and was rejected. On
the 6th, a fresh ordinance, declaring that the people being,
after God, the source of all just power, the representatives
of the people are the supreme power in the nation; and that
whatsoever is enacted or declared for law by the Commons in
Parliament hath the force of a law, and the people are
concluded thereby, though the consent of King or Peers be not
had thereto. Asserting this power, so utterly opposed either
to the ancient constitution of the monarchy, or to the
possible working of a republic, there was no hesitation in
constituting the High Court of Justice in the name of the
Commons alone. The number of members of the Court was now
reduced to 135. They had seven preparatory meetings, at which
only 58 members attended. 'All men,' says Mrs. Hutchinson,
'were left to their free liberty of acting, neither persuaded
nor compelled; and as there were some nominated in the
commission who never sat, and others who sat at first but
durst not hold on, so all the rest might have declined it if
they would, when it is apparent they should have suffered
nothing by so doing.' ... On the 19th of January, major
Harrison appeared ... at Windsor with his troop. There was a
coach with six horses in the court-yard, in which the King
took his seat; and, once more, he entered London, and was
lodged at St. James's palace.
{881}
The next day, the High Court of Justice was opened in
Westminster-hall. ... After the names of the members of the
court had been called, 69 being present, Bradshaw, the
president, ordered the serjeant to bring in the prisoner.
Silently the King sat down in the chair prepared for him. He
moved not his hat, as he looked sternly and contemptuously
around. The sixty-nine rose not from their seats, and remained
covered. ... The clerk reads the charge, and when he is
accused therein of being tyrant and traitor, he laughs in the
face of the Court. 'Though his tongue usually hesitated, yet
it was very free at this time, for he was never discomposed in
mind,' writes Warwick. ... Again and again contending against
the authority of the Court, the King was removed, and the
sitting was adjourned to the 22nd. On that day the same scene
was renewed; and again on the 23rd. A growing sympathy for the
monarch became apparent. The cries of 'Justice, justice,'
which were heard at first, were now mingled with 'God save the
King.' He had refused to plead; but the Court nevertheless
employed the 24th and 25th of January in collecting evidence
to prove the charge of his levying war against the Parliament.
Coke, the solicitor-general, then demanded whether the Court
would proceed to pronouncing sentence; and the members
adjourned to the Painted Chamber. On the 27th the public
sitting was resumed. ... The Court, Bradshaw then stated, had
agreed upon the sentence. Ludlow records that the King'
desired to make one proposition before they proceeded to
sentence; which he earnestly pressing, as that which he
thought would lead to the reconciling of all parties, and to
the peace of the three kingdoms, they permitted him to offer
it; the effect of which was, that he might meet the two Houses
in the Painted Chamber, to whom he doubted not to offer that
which should satisfy and secure all interests.' Ludlow goes on
to say, 'Designing, as I have since been informed, to propose
his own resignation, and the admission of his son to the
throne upon such terms as should have been agreed upon.' The
commissioners retired to deliberate, 'and being satisfied,
upon debate, that nothing but loss of time would be the
consequence of it, they returned into the Court with a
negative to his demand.' Bradshaw then delivered a solemn
speech to the King. ... The clerk was lastly commanded to read
the sentence, that his head should be severed from his body;
'and the commissioners,' says Ludlow, 'testified their
unanimous assent by standing up.' The King attempted to speak;
'but being accounted dead in law, was not permitted.' On the
29th of January, the Court met to sign the sentence of
execution, addressed to 'colonel Francis Hacker, colonel
Huncks, and lieutenant-colonel Phayr, and to every one of
them.' ... There were some attempts to save him. The Dutch
ambassador made vigorous efforts to procure a reprieve, whilst
the French and Spanish ambassadors were inert. The ambassadors
from the States nevertheless persevered; and early in the day
of the 30th obtained some glimmering of hope from Fairfax.
'But we found,' they say in their despatch, 'in front of the
house in which we had just spoken with the general, about 200
horsemen; and we learned, as well as on our way as on reaching
home, that all the streets, passages, and squares of London were
occupied by troops, so that no one could pass, and that the
approaches of the city were covered with cavalry, so as to
prevent anyone from coming in or going out; ... The same day,
between two and three o'clock, the King was taken to a
scaffold covered with black, erected before Whitehall.' To
that scaffold before Whitehall, Charles walked, surrounded by
soldiers, through the leafless avenues of St. James's Park. It
was a bitterly cold morning. ... His purposed address to the
people was delivered only to the hearing of those upon the
scaffold, but its purport was that the people mistook the
nature of government; for people are free under a government,
not by being sharers in it, but by due administration of the
laws of it.' His theory of government was a consistent one. He
had the misfortune not to understand that the time had been
fast passing away for its assertion. The headsman did his
office; and a deep groan went up from the surrounding
multitude."
Charles Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 4, chapter 7.
"In the death-warrant of 29th January 1649, next after the
President and Lord Grey, stands the name of Oliver Cromwell.
He accepted the responsibility of it, justified, defended it
to his dying day. No man in England was more entirely
answerable for the deed than he, 'I tell you,' he said to
Algernon Sidney, 'we will cut off his head with the crown upon
it.' ... Slowly he had come to know--not only that the man,
Charles Stuart, was incurably treacherous, but that any
settlement of Parliament with the old Feudal Monarchy was
impossible. As the head of the king rolled on the scaffold the
old Feudal Monarchy expired for ever. In January 1649 a great
mark was set in the course of the national life--the Old Rule
behind it, the New Rule before it. Parliamentary government,
the consent of the nation, equality of rights, and equity in
the law--all date from this great New Departure. The Stuarts
indeed returned for one generation, but with the sting of the
Old Monarchy gone, and only to disappear almost without a
blow. The Church of England returned; but not the Church of
Laud or of Charles. The peers returned, but as a meek House of
Lords, with their castles razed, their feudal rights and their
political power extinct. It is said that the regicides killed
Charles I. only to make Charles II. king. It is not so, They
killed the Old Monarchy; and the restored monarch was by no
means its heir, but a royal Stadtholder or Hereditary
President."
F. Harrison,
Oliver Cromwell,
chapter 7.
"Respecting the death of Charles it has been pronounced by
Fox, that 'it is much to be doubted whether his trial and
execution have not, as much as any other circumstance, served
to raise the character of the English nation in the opinion of
Europe in general.' And he goes on to speak with considerable
favour of the authors of that event. One of the great
authorities of the age having so pronounced, an hundred and
fifty years after the deed, it may be proper to consider for a
little the real merits of the actors, and the act. It is not
easy to imagine a greater criminal than the individual against
whom the sentence was awarded. ... Liberty is one of the
greatest negative advantages that can fall to the lot of a
man; without it we cannot possess any high degree of
happiness, or exercise any considerable virtue. Now Charles,
to a degree which can scarcely be exceeded, conspired against
the liberty of his country, to assert his own authority
without limitation, was the object of all his desires and all
his actions, so far as the public was concerned.
{882}
To accomplish this object he laid aside the use of a
parliament. When he was compelled once more to have recourse
to this assembly, and found it retrograde to his purposes, he
determined to bring up the army, and by that means to put an
end to its sittings. Both in Scotland and England, the scheme
that he formed for setting aside all opposition, was by force
of arms. For that purpose he commenced war against the English
parliament, and continued it by every expedient in his power
for four years. Conquered, and driven out of the field, he did
not for that, for a moment lose sight of his object and his
resolution. He sought in every quarter for the materials of a
new war; and, after an interval of twenty months, and from the
depths of his prison, he found them. To this must be added the
most consummate insincerity and duplicity. He could never be
reconciled; he could never be disarmed; he could never be
convinced. His was a war to the death, and therefore had the
utmost aggravation that can belong to a war against the
liberty of a nation. ... The proper lesson taught by the act
of the thirtieth of January, was that no person, however high
in station, however protected by the prejudices of his
contemporaries, must expect to be criminal against the welfare
of the state and community, without retribution and
punishment. The event however sufficiently proved that the
condemnation and execution of Charles did not answer the
purposes intended by its authors. It did not conciliate the
English nation to republican ideas. It shocked all those
persons in the country who did not adhere to the ruling party.
This was in some degree owing to the decency with which
Charles met his fate. He had always been in manners, formal,
sober and specious. ... The notion was every where prevalent,
that a sovereign could not be called to account, could not be
arraigned at the bar of his subjects. And the violation of
this prejudice, instead of breaking down the wall which
separated him from others, gave to his person a sacredness
which never before appertained to it. Among his own partisans
the death of Charles was treated, and was spoken of, as a sort
of deicide. And it may be admitted for a universal rule, that
the abrupt violation of a deep-rooted maxim and persuasion of
the human mind, produces a reaction, and urges men to hug the
maxim closer than ever. I am afraid, that the day that saw
Charles perish on the scaffold, rendered the restoration of
his family certain."
W. Godwin,
History of the Commonwealth of England
to the Restoration of Charles II.,
book 2, chapter 26 (volume 2).
"The situation, complicated enough already, had been still
further complicated by Charles's duplicity. Men who would have
been willing to come to terms with him, despaired of any
constitutional arrangement in which he was to be a factor; and
men who had long been alienated from him were irritated into
active hostility. By these he was regarded with increasing
intensity as the one disturbing force with which no
understanding was possible and no settled order consistent. To
remove him out of the way appeared, even to those who had no
thought of punishing him for past offences, to be the only
possible road to peace for the troubled nation. It seemed that
so long as Charles lived deluded nations and deluded parties
would be stirred up, by promises never intended to be
fulfilled, to fling themselves, as they had flung themselves
in the Second Civil War, against the new order of things which
was struggling to establish itself in England."
S. R. Gardiner,
History of the Great Civil War,
1642-1649, chapter 71 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
John Forster,
Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Henry Marten.
S. R. Gardiner,
Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution,
pages 268-290.
The following is the text of the Act which arraigned the King
and constituted the Court by which he was tried:
"Whereas it is notorious that Charles Stuart, the now king of
England, not content with the many encroachments which his
predecessors had made upon the people in their rights and
freedom, hath had a wicked design totally to subvert the
antient and fundamental laws and liberties of this nation, and
in their place to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical
government; and that, besides all other evil ways and means to
bring his design to pass, he hath prosecuted it with fire and
sword, levied and maintained a civil war in the land, against
the parliament and kingdom; whereby this country hath been
miserably wasted, the public treasure exhausted, trade
decayed, thousands of people murdered, and infinite other
mischiefs committed; for all which high and treasonable
offences the said Charles Stuart might long since have justly
been brought to exemplary and condign punishment: whereas also
the parliament, well hoping that the restraint and imprisonment
of his person after it had pleased God to deliver him into
their hands, would have quieted the distempers of the kingdom,
did forbear to proceed judicially against him; but found, by
sad experience, that such their remissness served only to
encourage him and his accomplices in the continuance of their
evil practices and in raising new commotions, rebellions, and
invasions: for prevention therefore of the like or greater
inconveniences, and to the end no other chief officer or
magistrate whatsoever may hereafter presume, traiterously and
maliciously, to imagine or contrive the enslaving or
destroying of the English nation, and to expect impunity for
so doing; be it enacted and ordained by the [Lords] and
commons in Parliament assembled, and it is hereby enacted and
ordained by the authority thereof, That the earls of Kent,
Nottingham, Pembroke, Denbigh, and Mulgrave; the lord Grey of
Warke; lord chief justice Rolle of the king's bench, lord
chief justice St. John of the common Pleas, and lord chief
baron Wylde; the lord Fairfax, lieutenant general Cromwell,
&c. [in all about 150,] shall be, and are hereby appointed and
required to be Commissioners and Judges, for the Hearing,
Trying, and Judging of the said Charles Stuart; and the said
Commissioners, or any 20 or more of them, shall be, and are
hereby authorized and constituted an High Court of Justice, to
meet and sit at such convenient times and place as by the said
commissioners, or the major part, or 20 or more of them, under
their hands and seals, shall be appointed and notified by
public Proclamation in the Great Hall, or Palace Yard of
Westminster; and to adjourn from time to time, and from place
to place, as the said High Court, or the major part thereof,
at meeting, shall hold fit; and to take order for the charging
of him, the said Charles Stuart, with the Crimes and Treasons
above-mentioned, and for receiving his personal Answer
thereunto, and for examination of witnesses upon oath, (which
the court hath hereby authority to administer) or otherwise,
and taking any other Evidence concerning the same; and
thereupon, or in default of such Answer, to proceed to final
Sentence according to justice and the merit of the cause; and
such final Sentence to execute, or cause to be executed,
speedily and impartially.--
{883}
And the said court is hereby and required to chuse and
appoint all such officers, attendants, and other circumstances
as they, or the major part of them, shall in any sort judge
necessary or useful for the orderly and good managing of the
premises; and Thomas lord Fairfax the General, and all
officers and soldiers, under his command, and all officers of
justice, and other well-affected persons, are hereby
authorized and required to be aiding and assisting unto the
said court in the due execution of the trust hereby committed
unto them; provided that this act, and the authority hereby
granted, do continue in force for the space of one month from
the date of the making hereof, and no longer."
Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England,
volume 3, pages 1254-1255.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (FEBRUARY).
The Commonwealth established.
"England was now a Republic. The change had been virtually
made on Thursday, January 4, 1648-9, when the Commons passed
their three great Resolutions, declaring
(1) that the People of England were, under God, the original
of all just power in the State,
(2) that the Commons, in Parliament assembled, having been
chosen by the People, and representing the People, possessed
the supreme power in their name, and
(3) that whatever the Commons enacted should have the force of
a law, without needing the consent of either King or House of
Peers.
On Tuesday, the 30th of January, the theory of these
Resolutions became more visibly a fact. On the afternoon of
that day, while the crowd that had seen the execution in front
of Whitehall were still lingering round the scaffold, the
Commons passed an Act 'prohibiting the proclaiming of any
person to be King of England or Ireland, or the dominions
thereof.' It was thus declared that Kingship in England had
died with Charles. But what of the House of Peers? It was
significant that on the same fatal day the Commons revived
their three theoretical resolutions of the 4th, and ordered
them to be printed. The wretched little rag of a House might
then have known its doom. But it took a week more to convince
them." On the 6th of February it was resolved by the House of
Commons, "'That the House of Peers in Parliament is useless
and dangerous, and ought to be abolished, and that an Act be
brought in to that purpose.' Next day, February 7, after
another long debate, it was further resolved 'That it hath
been found by experience, and this House doth declare, that
the office of a King in this realm, and to have the power
thereof in any single person, is unnecessary, burdensome, and
dangerous to the liberty, safety, and public interest of the
People of this nation, and therefore ought to be abolished,
and that an Act be brought in to that purpose.' Not till after
some weeks were these Acts deliberately passed after the
customary three readings. The delay, however, was matter of
mere Parliamentary form. Theoretically a Republic since Jan.
4, 1648-9, and visibly a Republic from the day of Charles's
death, England was a Republic absolutely and in every sense
from February 7, 1648-9." For the administration of the
government of the republican Commonwealth, the Commons
resolved, on the 7th of February, that a Council of State be
erected; to consist of not more than forty persons. On the
13th, Instructions to the intended Council of State were
reported and agreed to, "these Instructions conferring almost
plenary powers, but limiting the duration of the Council to
one year." On the 14th and 15th forty-one persons were
appointed to be members of the Council, Fairfax, Cromwell,
Vane, St. John, Whitlocke, Henry Marten, and Colonels
Hutchinson and Ludlow being in the number; nine to constitute
a quorum, and no permanent President to be chosen.
D. Masson,
Life of John Milton,
volume 4, book 1, chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume. 10, chapter 5.
A. Bisset,
Omitted Chapters of History of England,
chapter 1.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (FEBRUARY).
The Eikon Basilike.
"A book, published with great secrecy, and in very mysterious
circumstances, February 9, 1648-9, exactly ten days after the
late King's death, had done much to increase the Royalist
enthusiasm.
'Eikon Basilike: The True Portraicture of His Sacred Majestie
in his Solitudes and Sufferings.--Romans viii. More than
conquerour, &c.--Bona agere et mala pati Regium est.
MDCXLVIII':
such was the title-page of this volume (of 269 pages of text,
in small octavo), destined by fate, rather than by merit, to
be one of the most famous books of the world. ... The book, so
elaborately prepared and heralded, consists of twenty-eight
successive chapters, purporting to have been written by the
late King, and to be the essence of his spiritual
autobiography in the last years of his life. Each chapter,
with scarcely an exception, begins with a little narrative, or
generally rather with reflections and meditations on some
passage of the King's life the narrative of which is supposed
to be unnecessary, and ends with a prayer in italics
appropriate to the circumstances remembered. ... Save for a
few ... passages ... , the pathos of which lies in the
situation they represent, the Eikon Basilike is a rather dull
performance, in third-rate rhetoric, modulated after the
Liturgy; and without incision, point, or the least shred of
real information as to facts. But O what a reception it had!
Copies of it ran about instantaneously, and were read with
sobs and tears. It was in vain that Parliament, March 16, gave
orders for seizing the book. It was reprinted at once in
various forms, to supply the constant demand--which was not
satisfied, it is said, with less than fifty editions within a
single year; it became a very Bible in English Royalist
households. ... By means of this book, in fact, acting on the
state of sentiment which it fitted, there was established,
within a few weeks after the death of Charles I., that
marvellous worship of his memory, that passionate recollection
of him as the perfect man and the perfect king, the saint, the
martyr, the all but Christ on earth again, which persisted
till the other day as a positive religious cultus of the
English mind, and still lingers in certain quarters."
D. Masson,
Life and Times of John Milton,
volume 4, book 1, chapter 1.
{884}
"I struggled through the Eikon Basilike yesterday; one of the
paltriest pieces of vapid, shovel-hatted, clear-starched,
immaculate falsity and cant I have ever read. It is to me an
amazement how any mortal could ever have taken that for a
genuine book of King Charles's. Nothing but a surpliced
Pharisee, sitting at his ease afar off, could have got up such
a set of meditations. It got Parson Gauden [John Gauden,
Bishop of Exeter and Worcester, successively, after the
Restoration, and who is believed to have been the author of
the Eikon Basilike] a bishopric."
T. Carlyle,
History of his Life in London,
by Froude, volume 1, chapter 7, November 26, 1840.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (APRIL-MAY).
Mutiny of the Levellers.
See LEVELLERS.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1649-1650.
Cromwell's campaign in Ireland.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1649-1650.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1650 (JULY).
Charles II. proclaimed King in Scotland.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1650 (MARCH-JULY).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1650 (SEPTEMBER).
War with the Scots and Cromwell's victory at Dunbar.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1650 (SEPTEMBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1651 (SEPTEMBER).
The Scots and Charles II. overthrown at Worcester.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1651.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1651-1653.
The Army and the Rump.
"'Now that the King is dead and his son defeated,' Cromwell
said gravely to the Parliament, 'I think it necessary to come
to a settlement.' But the settlement which had been promised
after Naseby was still as distant as ever after Worcester. The
bill for dissolving the present Parliament, though Cromwell
pressed it in person, was only passed, after bitter
opposition, by a majority of two; and even this success had
been purchased by a compromise which permitted the House to
sit for three years more. Internal affairs were simply at a
dead lock. ... The one remedy for all this was, as the army
saw, the assembly of a new and complete Parliament in place of
the mere 'rump' of the old; but this was the one measure which
the House was resolute to avert. Vane spurred it to a new
activity. ... But it was necessary for Vane's purposes not
only to show the energy of the Parliament, but to free it from
the control of the army. His aim was to raise in the navy a
force devoted to the House, and to eclipse the glories of
Dunbar and Worcester by yet greater triumphs at sea. With this
view the quarrel with Holland had been carefully nursed. ...
The army hardly needed the warning conveyed by the
introduction of a bill for its disbanding to understand the
new policy of the Parliament. ... The army petitioned not only
for reform in Church and State, but for an explicit
declaration that the House would bring its proceedings to a
close. The Petition forced the House to discuss a bill for 'a
New Representative,' but the discussion soon brought out the
resolve of the sitting members to continue as a part of the
coming Parliament without re-election. The officers, irritated
by such a claim, demanded in conference after conference an
immediate dissolution, and the House as resolutely refused. In
ominous words Cromwell supported the demands of the army. 'As
for the members of this Parliament, the army begins to take
them in disgust. I would it did so with less reason.' ... Not
only were the existing members to continue as members of the
New Parliament, depriving the places they represented of their
right of choosing representatives, but they were to constitute
a Committee of Revision, to determine the validity of each