LIX. soldiers, who were quartered there for its defence, CHA P. and who were resolved not to separate their interests from those of the army. It behoved then the par- 1647. liament to submit. The army marched in triumph through the city, but preserved the greatest order, decency, and appearance of humility. They conducted to Westminster the two speakers, who took their seats as if nothing had happened. The eleven impeached members, being accused as authors of the tumult, were expelled; and most of them retired beyond sea: Seven peers were impeached: The mayor, one sheriff, and three aldermen, sent to the Tower: Several citizens and officers of-the militia committed to prison: Every deed of the parliament annulled, from the day of the tumult till the return of the speakers: The lines about the city levelled: The militia restored to the independents: Regiments quartered in Whitehall and the The army Meuse: And the parliament being reduced to a re- subdue the gular formed servitude, a day was appointed of so- ment. lemn thanksgiving for the restoration of its liberty." THE independent party among the commons exulted in their victory. The whole authority of the nation, they imagined, was now lodged in their hands; and they had a near prospect of moulding the government into that imaginary republic which had long been the object of their wishes. They had secretly concurred in all encroachments of the military upon the civil power; and they expected, by the terror of the sword, to impose a more perfect system of liberty on the reluctant nation. All parties, the king, the church, the parliament, the presbyterians, had been guilty of errors since the commencement of these disorders: But it must be confessed, that this delusion of the independents and republicans was, of all others, the most contrary to common sense and the established maxims of policy. Rush. vol. viii. p. 797, 798, &c. Yet parlia 1647. CHAP. Yet were the leaders of that party, Vane, Fiennes, LIX. St. John, Martin, the men in England the most celebrated for profound thought and deep contrivance; and by their well-coloured pretences and professions, they had over-reached the whole nation. To deceive such men, would argue a superlative capacity in Cromwel; were it not that, besides the great difference there is between dark, crooked councils and true wisdom, an exorbitant passion for rule and authority will make the most prudent overlook the dangerous consequences of such measures as seem to tend, in any degree, to their own advancement. THE leaders of the army having established their dominion over the parliament and city, ventured to bring the king to Hampton-court, and he lived, for some time, in that palace with an appearance of dignity and freedom. Such equability of temper did he possess, that during all the variety of fortune which he underwent, no difference was perceived in his countenance or behaviour; and though a prisoner, in the hands of his. most inveterate enemies, he supported, towards all who approached him, the majesty of a monarch; and that neither with less nor greater state than he had been accustomed to maintain. His manner, which was not in itself popular nor gracious, now appeared amiable, from its great meekness and equality. THE parliament renewed their application to him, and presented him with the same conditions which they had offered at Newcastle. The king declined accepting them, and desired the parliament to take the proposals of the army into consideration, and make them the foundation of the public settlement. He still entertained hopes that his negotiations with the generals would be crowned with success; though every thing, in that particular, daily bore a worse aspect, Most historians have thought that Cromwel never was sincere in his professions; P Rush. vol. viii. p. 810. LIX. 1647. sions; and that, having by force rendered himself CHA P. master of the king's person, and, by fair pretences, acquired the countenance of the royalists, he had employed these advantages to the enslaving of the parliament; and afterwards thought of nothing but the establishment of his own unlimited authority, with which he esteemed the restoration, and even life of the king, altogether incompatible. This opinion, so much warranted by the boundless ambition and profound dissimulation of his character, meets with ready belief: though it is more agreeable to the narrowness of human views, and the darkness of futurity, to suppose, that this daring usurper was guided by events, and did not as yet foresee, with any assurance, that unparalleled greatness which he afterwards attained. Many writers of that age have asserted, that he really intended to make a private bargain with the king; a measure which carried the most plausible appearance both for his safety and advancement: But that he found insuperable difficulties in reconciling to it the wild humours of the army. The horror and antipathy of these fanatics had, for many years, been artfully fomented against Charles; and though their principles were on all occasions easily warped and eluded by private interest, yet was some colouring requisite, and a flat contradiction to all former professions and tenets could not safely be proposed to them. It is certain, at least, that Cromwel, made use of this reason, why he admitted rarely of visits from the king's friends, and shewed less favour than formerly to the royal cause. The agitators, he said, had rendered him odious to the army, and had represented him as a traitor, who, for the sake of private interest, was ready to betray the cause of God to the great enemy of piety and religion. Desperate projects, too, he asserted to be secretly formed, for the murder of the king; and he pretended much 9 See note [C] at the end of the volume. CHAP. much to dread lest all his authority, and that of LIX. the commanding officers, would not be able to restrain these enthusiasts from their bloody purposes. 1647. INTELLIGENCE being daily brought to the king, of menaces thrown out by the agitators, he began to think of retiring from Hampton-court, and of putting himself in some place of safety. The guards were doubled upon him: The promiscuous concourse of people restrained: A more jealous care exerted in attending his person: All under colour of protecting him from danger; but really with a view of making him uneasy in his present situation. These artifices soon produced the intended effect. Charles, who was naturally apt to be swayed by counsel, and who had not then access to any good counsel, took suddenly a resolution of withdrawing himself, though without any concerted, at least any rational, scheme for the future disposal 11th Nov. of his person. Attended only by sir John Berkeley, Ashburnham, and Leg, he privately left Hamptoncourt; and his escape was not discovered till near an hour after; when those who entered his chamber found on the table some letters directed to the parliament, to the general, and to the officer who had attended him. All night he travelled through the forest, and arrived next day at Titchfield, a seat of the earl of Southampton's, where the countess dowager resided, a woman of honour, to whom the king knew he might safely entrust his person. Before he arrived at this place, he had gone to the sea-coast; and expressed great anxiety, that a ship which he seemed to look for, had not arrived; and thence, Berkeley and Leg, who were not in the secret, conjectured, that his intention was to transport himself beyond sea. The king THE king could not hope to remain long conflies to the cealed at Titchfield: What measures should next be embraced was the question. In the neighbourhood isle of Wight. lay г Clarendon, vol. v. p. 76. s Rush. vol. viii. p. 871, vernor. LIX. 1647. lay the isle of Wight, of which Hammond was go- CHA P. This man was entirely dependent on Cromwel. At his recommendation he had married a daughter of the famous Hampden, who, during his lifetime, had been an intimate friend of Cromwel's, and whose memory was ever respected by him. These circumstances were very unfavourable: Yet, because the governor was nephew to Dr. Hammond, the king's favourite chaplain, and had acquired a good character in the army, it was thought proper to have recourse to him, in the present exigence, when no other rational expedient could be thought of. Ashburnham and Berkeley were dispatched to the island. They had orders not to inform Hammond of the place where the king was concealed, till they had first obtained a promise from him not to deliver up his majesty, though the parliament and the army should require him; but to restore him to his liberty, if he could not protect him. This promise, it is evident, would have been a very slender security: Yet even without exacting it, Ashburnham, imprudently, if not treacherously, brought Hammond to Titchfield; and the king was obliged to put himself in his hands, and to attend him to Carisbroke-castle in the isle of Wight, where, though received with great demonstrations of respect and duty, he was in reality a prisoner. LORD Clarendon is positive, that the king, when he fled from Hampton-court, had no intention of going to this island; and indeed all the circumstances of that historian's narrative, which we have here followed, strongly favour this opinion. But there remains a letter of Charles's to the earl of Laneric, secretary of Scotland, in which he plainly intimates, that that measure was voluntarily embraced; and even insinuates, that if he had thought proper, he might have been in Jersey or any other 'P. 79, 80, &c. place |