king, would naturally labour to appoint officers agreeable to him; and as the power of the sword returned in three years to the king, every commander who expected promotion, or wished to continue in a military capacity, would despise the parliamentary commissioners, and sedulously promote his majesty's service. But the ten parliamentary commissioners might also be seduced, particularly as the royal vengeance might soon overtake an inflexible adherence to principle; while, should their integrity be unshaken, and a difference arise between them and those for the king, who was to be umpire between them? If the parliament were dissolved, and in his letters to the queen during the treaty, he declares that he would not forget to put a short period to it, the question is easily answered. If it continued, here was a field for fresh contention, and the king, in all probability, would by secret practices accomplish his object. The army would thus be at his devotion; the policy from which he had been partly obliged to recede would be resumed; the bulwarks of liberty, according even to the designs imputed to him by Clarendon, would be overthrown*; and

* If Charles, as Clarendon admits, passed acts before the commencement of the war, merely because he thought that he had, in the alleged want of freedom in the houses, a pretext for holding them as having been null and void from the beginning, multo magis had he such a plea, when calling the two houses a parliament, was not acknowledging them. If they were not a parliament they had no power to treat; ergo, an agreement with them being a transaction with usurpers, who had no authority to act, was null. Such, we may safely infer from the one case, would have been his logic in the other.

then the popular leaders would be exposed defence, less victims of arbitrary power. In his past conduct men had an earnest of the future. On the other hand, the parliament proposed that the militia should be conceded to it, and vested in commissioners either for three years after the firm establishment of peace, or for seven years certain from the date of the agreement, and then be settled by bill. This was, of course, refused by the king.

In regard to religion, the parliament insisted that the Solemn League and Covenant should be taken throughout the kingdom, and even by Charles himself; that the bill for the utter abolition of episcopacy, deans, and chapters, should be passed by him, and the lands sequestrated for other uses; that the directory of worship which had been recommended by the assembly of divines, and approved of by both houses, should be ratified; and that the presbyterian church government, as it should be afterwards fully modified by parliament, with the assistance of the assembly, should be established. Neither Charles nor his advisers, unless perhaps we should except Hyde, regarded the form of church government in any other light than as a civil engine; and, as this was fully perceived by the opposite party*, his propo

* The king's principles have already been sufficiently established, but see in addition, MSS. Brit. Mus. Ayscough, 4161, a letter from Charles to the queen, 17th October, 1646, in which he justifies himself for refusing his consent to the presbyterian government entirely on the principle of policy; for that religion was not the

sals to limit the powers of the prelates, by preventing them from exercising any act of jurisdiction or ordination, without the consent and counsel of

ground of dissension on either side: That so great a power of the crown once given away could not be recovered; and that he would not consent to a religion which justified rebellion. No. 87 is another to the same effect, with this addition, that he considered the episcopal government of more importance to his authority than even the militia. See also No. 88, and Clar. State Papers, vol. ii. p. 207, et seq. With regard to the opinion entertained of his conscientious adherence to episcopacy, see Baillie's Letters, vol. ii. p. 224, et seq. "No oaths," says he, "did ever persuade me that episcopacy was ever adhered to on any conscience," &c.

At the treaty of Uxbridge, Dr. Stewart, on the king's part, spoke very learnedly against the presbyterian government, maintaining that episcopacy was jure divino; and Mr. Henderson and Mr. Marshal as stoutly argued that the presbyterian was jure divino, when the Marquis of Hertford spoke to this effect: "My Lords, here is much said concerning church government in the general: the reverend doctors on the king's part affirm that episcopacy is jure divino; the reverend ministers of the other part affirm that presbytery is jure divino: for my part, I think that neither the one nor the other, nor any government whatsoever, is jure divino, and I desire we may leave this argument, and proceed to debate upon the particular proposals.”—“ The Earl of Pembroke was of the same judgment, and many of the commissioners besides were willing to pass this over, and to come to particulars." Whitelocke, p. 128. The feelings of the mongrel parliament are evident from their desire to renew the treaty against the royal wish, &c.- -See also in regard to the council, Clar. Life, vol. i. p. 47— 92, et seq. 80-128, et seq. 89-175, 176; see also State Papers, vol. ii. p. 224, et seq. The whole of Mr. Hume's statements on this head are therefore erroneous. He alleges that Charles was actuated by conscience; though, in a note at the end of vol. vi. he is obliged to confess, that a letter published by Mr. M'Auly proves that he was actuated by policy, but then it was sound policy, though, he says, partly grounded on principle. His text is founded entirely upon the unfortunate piety of Charles: but here a high tribute must be paid to his good sense, for being guided by political motives. Was it good sense to kindle dissension in three kingdoms, by his silly, arbitrary, and intolerant innovations?

the prelates, who should be chosen by the clergy of each diocese, out of the learnedest and gravest ministers of that diocese; by obliging the bishops

"It is remarkable," says Mr. Hume, in relation to the petition from the citizens of London against episcopacy, in the beginning of the parliament, "that, among the many ecclesiastical abuses there complained of, an allowance given by the licensers of books, to publish a translation of Ovid's Art of Love, is not forgotten by these rustic censors." The argument of Lord Digby against the petition was, that the abuses in the ecclesiastical system should be reformed; but that the existence of such evils was not a reason for overturning that species of government itself. If, however, the ecclesiastical government was to be regarded, as it undoubtedly ought to have been, as a mere political arrangement for the support of the Christian religion in purity, was it at all extraordinary that men who had suffered so much by its having been perverted into an engine of arbitrary power in church and state, and perceived that the monarch was still inclined to use it as such, should have desired a different establishment, such as they beheld in other countries, and from which they apprehended no bad consequences? But what is all this, it may be asked, to their rage against a translation of Ovid's Art of Love? Now, all who are acquainted with the writings of that age, must allow that many of them were abominably licentious; and we may well believe that this translation of Ovid's " Fits of Love," which I conceive comprehended the amours, which are the worst, as well as the art of love, would not have been selected as an example of the licentiousness of the press, had it not been amongst the most detestable. Every scholar must grant, that, in the original, they are so profligate, that were a poet in our times to indulge in such a vein, he would most properly be deemed a very fit subject for the pillory. But it may be said, what is all this to the bishops? Are they responsible for all profane and wicked productions? Now, mark the art of Mr. Hume. Instead of representing a matter under all the circumstances of the age out of which it emerged, he renders it ludicrous by narrating it according to the posture of affairs in his own time. No man could be silly enough to dream of implicating the prelates now in the licentious productions that the press may teem with. But what was the situation of things then? Hume talks of the censors of the press having licensed the works: But he forgets to inform his readers, that the prelates were themselves the censors;

to reside in their dioceses, and preach every Sunday; by prohibiting them from ordaining ministers without the approbation and consent of the majority of presbyters; by allowing a competent provision out of the impropriations to such vicarages as belonged to bishops, deans, and chapters, besides raising £100,000 out of their estates, towards discharging the public debts, &c.-were regarded as a cunning device to retain that species of government, that, in imitation of his father's conduct in Scotland, and according to the principles manifested by himself, he might, on the first opportunity, restore the spiritual tyranny which had so ground his kingdoms *.

Had the points regarding the militia, religion, and Ireland, been conceded, the other points insisted on by the parliament, which regarded the punishment of delinquents, and the abolition of the court of wards, might easily have been settled: But as no point was yielded, the treaty was broken off. In the exceptions from pardon were spe

and that, while they refused a licence even to such old books as Fox's Martyrs, Jewel's Works, nay to the Practice of Piety itself, which had run through from thirty to forty editions, they pampered the gross taste of certain classes, by licensing the abominable productions alluded to. Was not this shameful? Had these works stolen surreptitiously into the world; and the prelates merely been accused of want of vigilance, an apology for them must have been readily received by every liberal mind; but the very act of licensing such productions, justly brought odium on them; and we must therefore allow that the citizens were right in complaining of this amongst other branches of their misconduct.