CHAP. IX. to form of bills, which the King should be called upon either to adopt or reject. Nevertheless, Charles again attempted negotiate, encouraged thereto by the open animosity which existed between the Presbyterians and Independents, and he took care that the terms he offered should be such as should estrange these parties further from each other, and, at last, bring the Presbyterians over to his side, as their only chance of safety. But the parliament persisted in refusing to hear him, and before the end of the year they discovered the secret negotiations he had been actively carrying on with the Irish rebels, which put an end to all negotiations, whatsoever. Commission Glamorgan. These secret negotiations had now been going on for nearly two years, and were known to no one but the agent employed in them, Lord Herbert, the eldest son of the Marquis of Worcester. Charles agreed, on condition that the confederate Irish insurgents furnished him with 10,000 men, to make to them certain religious concessions, which were, however, to be kept secret for the present, and, if discovered, to be disavowed. Secret Herbert, created Earl of Glamorgan, was then furnished of the Earl of with a commission, authorising him to levy men, coin money, and employ the crown revenues for their support, and to grant any concessions which he saw fit. He was also provided with letters for the Pope, the nuncio, and several Catholic princes from whom Charles expected aid. Care was taken that the Council should be perfectly ignorant of these documents; they were not sealed in the usual manner; no names were inserted; and every precaution was taken that the King should be able, in the event of disclosure, to deny their authenticity (March, 1645). After several adventures, Glamorgan reached Ireland, and communicated the general purpose of his errand to Ormond; and at Dublin both of them joined in negotiations with the Catholic deputies. Glamorgan then proceeded to Kilkenny, where the supreme council of the confederates sat, and a secret treaty was here concluded (August 25th), by which it was stipulated that the Catholics should enjoy the public exercise of their religion, and retain all churches and church revenues which were treaty with not actually in the possession of the established clergy; and that, in the rebels. return, they should furnish the King with 10,000 men against a certain day. The public treaty which was to conceal this transaction now proceeded with surprising facility, and the only point in debate between the lord lieutenant and the deputies was, the demand of the latter to be relieved by act of parliament from the penalties attached to the exercise of the Catholic worship. This demand, however, alarmed Ormond, and two expedients were suggested; one, that in place of this disputed article another should be substituted, providing that any concessionwith respect to religion which the King might hereafter grant, should be considered His secret 1646 as making part of the present treaty; the other, that no mention should be made of religion at all, but that the lieutenant should privately engage not to molest the Catholics in the possession of those churches which they now held, but leave the question to the decision of a free parliament. To this both parties assented (November 11th, 1645). discovers it But before this, the secret treaty had accidentally come to the knowledge of the parliament. On the 17th of October, the Archbishop of Tuam, one of the rebel leaders, was Parliament slain in a skirmish under the walls of Sligo, and in his accidentally. carriage were found copies of the secret treaty and of the whole negotiation. The committee of the two kingdoms kept these documents secret for three months; but now, when Charles was so urgent upon negotiations for peace, they laid them before parliament, which immediately ordered them to be published. This discovery utterly disconcerted the King. To save the royal reputation, Ormond at once arrested Glamorgan (January 4th, 1646), who, steadfast in his devotion, remained silent, and did not produce the secret instructions which Charles had signed. On his side, the King hastened to disown his envoy (January 21st), in a proclamation he addressed to parliament, and in his official letters to the council in Dublin. But the lord lieutenant was now in possession of the document, unknown to the parliament, by which Charles had agreed to ratify whatever Glamorgan should promise in the royal name. Charles denied all Conduct of recollection of such a warrant; but falsehood was now too common a habit with all parties either for the parliament Glamorgan. to be deceived by the royal proclamation, or Ormond with the King's denial. Glamorgan was released in a few days, and he immediately proceeded to resume his negotiations for the transmission of the Irish army into England. Having obtained an immediate aid of 6,000 men, and the promise of a considerable reinforcement, he proceeded to Waterford, for the purpose of attempting to raise the siege of Chester. But the intelligence which there reached him completely frustrated his whole enterprise. Chester had fallen; the royal army in Cornwall, under Lord Hopton, was dissolved, and the Prince of Wales, who was with it, had escaped, first to the Scilly Isles, and then to Jersey; and the last Royalist force, under Lord Astley, had been completely defeated at Stow, in Gloucestershire (March 22nd, 1646). Thus, there was no spot on the English coast where the Irish auxiliaries could be landed with any prospect of success. Glamorgan, therefore, disbanded them; and the King's last hope of renewing the war was utterly banished.* * Lingard, X., 164-174. Ormond and to the CHAP. IX. 70. The King treats with all parties, and finally gives himself up to the Scots. Notwithstanding these untoward discoveries, Charles continued to consume his time in unavailing negotiations with the parliament, the Scots, and the Independents. He pertinaciously solicited a personal conference at Westminster. He offered to grant full toleration to all Protestant dissenters, to yield the command of the army to the parliament for seven years, His offers and to make over to them the next nomination of the parliament. lord admiral, the judges, and the officers of state. This offer was treated with silent contempt, yet Charles made another, proposing to disband his forces, dismantle his garrisons, and return to his usual residence in the vicinity of the parliament, if they on their part, would swear to preserve his honour, person, and estate, and allow his adherents to live on their property unmolested. But even to this proposal the parliament returned no answer; and instead thereof, they gave strict orders that the King should be immediately arrested if he came into the, city. Indepen. dents. What Charles asked from the Independents was, to facilitate And to the his access to parliament, pledging himself, that if the presbytery were insisted upon, he would join them with all his powers in “rooting out that tyrannical government." It is not known whether Vane, to whom this correspendence was addressed, made any reply to it; but the acute leaders of the Independents were not to be deceived by any proposals that the King made, knowing very well, that in none of them were his intentions honourable. That they were right in this conviction, Confession is proved by a letter which Charles at that very time duplicity. wrote to Lord Digby, in which he stated that his only purpose in endeavouring to get to London, was "so to draw either the Presbyterians or Independents to side with him, for extirpating one the other, that he should be really King again."* of his own In the meantime, Fairfax's troops were advancing by forced marches to besiege Oxford, and although the city had been rendered one of the strongest fortresses in the kingdom, being surrounded on three sides by the Isis and the Charwell, and on the north by impregnable works, yet Charles was altogether unable to sustain a siege, and it, therefore, behoved him to seek another asylum immediately (April, 1646). For the last two months, Montreuil, the French ambassador, had been endeavouring to secure for him a safe and honourable refuge in the Scottish camp. Rebuffed, in the first instance, by the Scottish commissioners in London, and con* Forster's Lives, IV., 107. Negotiations with the Scottish army. 1647 escapes vinced, by a journey to Edinburgh, that there was nothing to hope from the Scottish parliament, he, at last, addressed himself to some of the leaders of the army besieging Newark, and their disposition had appeared to him so favourable, that he thought himself warranted in promising the King that the Scots would receive him as their legitimate sovereign, shelter him from danger, and co-operate with him in re-establishing peace. But the conduct of the Scottish officers, who were willing to save the King, yet not to quarrel with the parliament, soon showed Montreuil that he had been too sanguine, and he hastened to warn the King of his error. The Queen, however, wrote to Charles from Paris, exhorting him to trust to the Scots; and Montreuil, soon afterwards, assured him that, at least, he would find personal safety among them. On the 27th of April, Charles left Oxford in disguise, as the servant of Ashburnham, his valet, and Charles guided by one Dr. Hudson, a clergyman well acquainted from with the country, passed through Henley and Brentford disguise. to Harrow, where he deliberated whether he should proceed to London or not. His heart failed him, and he turned in the direction of St. Albans, which he avoided, proceeding to Harborough, thence to Stamford, and afterwards to Downham, where he vainly sought for a vessel to convey him to Newcastle or Scotland. After thus wandering about, without any settled purpose, for nine days, he at last made up his mind as much from weariness as choice, and, on the 5th of May, was introduced by Montreuil into the head quarters of the Scots at Kelham. That evening he discovered he was a prisoner, for, when he attempted to give the password for the night to the guard, the Earl of Leven interrupted him, saying, "Pardon me, Sire, I am the oldest soldier here; your majesty will permit me to undertake that duty." * IV. Oxford in FROM THE TERMINATION OF THE FIRST CIVIL WAR 71. The transactions at Newcastle while Charles was with the Scots. The moment that the place of the King's retreat was known, both Presbyterians and Independents united in condemning the perfidy of the Scots. Poyntz, who was quartered at Newark, received orders to watch their movements, and Fairfax was ordered to follow. The Scots, on their part anxious to avoid a rupture, and yet unwilling to surrender their prize, broke up their camp and retreated in haste to Newcastle, * Guizot's Eng. Rev., 301. CHAP. IX. whence by protestations and denials they succeeded in allaying the ferment. Charles also contributed to the establishment of a more perfect understanding, by ordering the royalist governors who still held out, to surrender their towns (June 10th). Still, while he wrote publicly to Ormond to break off negotiations with the Irish, he secretly ordered him to continue them. Oxford, Worcester, Pendennis, and Raglan opened their gates; the last remnants of the royal army obtained honourable terms; easy compositions for the redemption of their estates were held out to the great majority of the Royalists, and no executions stained the triumph of the parliament. The first civil war in which all the parliamentary factions united against the King, was now over. They had done their work, as old Lord Astley, the last royal chief who kept the field, said as he sat on a drum after his defeat at Stow, and might now go to play; unless they preferred to fall out among themselves. They preferred the latter, and the possession of the King's person was the first cause of quarrel. The Scots, in the meantime, endeavoured to convert the King the Presbyterian creed, and for that purpose employed Henderson, their most famous minister. But Charles proved himself a match for that veteran opponent; the controversy between them continued from the 16th of May to the 16th of July, and ended in attaching the King more firmly than ever to Episcopacy. A week after this religious discussion had terminated, the parliamentary commissioners arrived at Newcastle with proposals (July 23rd), which demanded the adoption of the covenant, the abolition of Episcopacy, surrender to the parliament for twenty years of the command of the army, navy, and militia, and the exclusion of seventy-one of the King's adherents (all of whom were named) from any amnesty, and of all his followers from public employment. These terms, bitter as they were, his friends advised him to accept, and the Scots declared that if he refused to accept the covenant, they would forbid his entrance into Scotland. On the tenth day, the utmost limit of the time Charles allotted for negotiations, Charles absolutely rejected the parliament's proposals, and persisted in his demand for a personal proposals. conference in London. The King's reply filled the Independents with joy, who no longer disguised their wish to dethrone Charles, and either place his son, the Duke of York, who had been taken at Oxford, upon the throne, or establish a republic. The Presbyterians were disheartened; but when the Scots offered to withdraw their army on the receipt of a compensation for their past services, the two houses cheerfully rejects the |