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Cromwell had great deference for the counsels of Ireton, a man who, having grafted the soldier on the lawyer the statesman on the saint, had adopted such principles as were fitted to introduce the severest tyranny, while they seemed to encourage the most unbounded license in human society. Fierce in his nature, though probably sincere in his intentions, he purposed by arbitrary power to establish liberty, and, in prosecution of his imagined religious purposes, he thought himself dispensed from all the ordinary rules of morality, by which inferior mortals must allow themselves to be governed. From his suggestion, Cromwell secretly called at Windsor a council of the chief officers, in order to deliberate concerning the settlement of the nation, and the future disposal of the king’s person.[***]

* Rush. vol. viii. p. 845, 859.

** Rush. vol. viii. p. 875. Clarendon, vol. v. p. 87.

*** Clarendon, vol. v. p. 92.

In this conference, which commenced with devout prayers, poured forth by Cromwell himself and other inspired persons, (for the officers of this army received inspiration with their commission,) was first opened the daring and unheard-of counsel, of bringing the king to justice, and of punishing, by a judicial sentence, their sovereign, for his pretended tyranny and maleadministration. While Charles lived, even though restrained to the closest prison, conspiracies, they knew, and insurrections would never be wanting in favor of a prince who was so extremely revered and beloved by his own party, and whom the nation in general began to regard with great affection and compassion. To murder him privately was exposed to the imputation of injustice and cruelty, aggravated by the baseness of such a crime; and every odious epithet of “traitor” and “assassin” would, by the general voice of mankind, be indisputably ascribed to the actors in such a villany. Some unexpected procedure must be attempted, which would astonish the world by its novelty, would bear the semblance of justice, and would cover its barbarity by the audaciousness of the enterprise. Striking in with the fanatical notions of the entire equality of mankind, it would insure the devoted obedience of the army, and serve as a general engagement against the royal family, whom, by their open and united deed, they would so heinously affront and injure.[*]

This measure, therefore, being secretly resolved on, it was requisite, by degrees, to make the parliament adopt it, and to conduct them from violence to violence, till this last act of atrocious iniquity should seem in a manner wholly inevitable. The king, in order to remove those fears and jealousies, which were perpetually pleaded as reasons for every invasion of the constitution, had offered, by a message sent from Carisbroke Castle, to resign, during his own life, the power of the militia and the nomination to all the great offices; provided that, after his demise, these prerogatives should revert to the crown.[**] But the parliament acted entirely as victors and enemies; and, in all their transactions with him, paid no longer any regard to equity or reason. At the instigation of the Independents and army, they neglected this offer, and framed four proposals, which they sent him as preliminaries; and before they would deign to treat, they demanded his positive assent to all of them.

* The following was a favorite text among the enthusiasts of
that age: “Let the high praises of God be in the mouths of
his saints, and a twofold sword in their hands, to execute
vengeance upon the heathen and punishment upon the people;
to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with
fetters of iron; to execute upon them the judgments written:
This honor have all his saints.” Psalm cxlix, ver. 6, 7, 8,
9. Hugh Peters, the mad chaplain of Cromwell, preached
frequently upon this text.

** Rush. vol. viii. p 880.

By one, he was required to invest the parliament with the military power for twenty years, together with an authority to levy whatever money should be necessary for exercising it; and even after the twenty years should be elapsed, they reserved a right of resuming the same authority, whenever they should declare the safety of the kingdom to require it. By the second, he was to recall all his proclamations and declarations against the parliament, and acknowledge that assembly to have taken arms in their just and necessary defence. By the third, he was to annul all the acts, and void all the patents of peerage, which had passed the great seal since it had been carried from London by Lord Keeper Littleton; and at the same time, renounce for the future the power of making peers without consent of parliament. By the fourth, he gave the two houses power to adjourn as they thought proper; a demand seemingly of no great importance, but contrived by the Independents, that they might be able to remove the parliament to places where it should remain in perpetual subjection to the army.[*]

1648.

The king regarded the pretension as unusual and exorbitant, that he should make such concessions, while not secure of any settlement; and should blindly trust his enemies for the conditions which they were afterwards to grant him. He required, therefore, a personal treaty with the parliament, and desired that all the terms on both sides should be adjusted, before any concession on either side should be insisted on. The republican party in the house pretended to take fire at this answer; and openly inveighed, in violent terms, against the person and government of the king; whose name, hitherto, had commonly, in all debates, been mentioned with some degree of reverence. Ireton, seeming to speak the sense of the army, under the appellation of many thousand godly men, who had ventured their lives in defence of the parliament, said, that the king, by denying the four bills, had refused safety and protection to his people; that their obedience to him was but a reciprocal duty for his protection of them; and that, as he had failed on his part, they were freed from all obligations to allegiance, and must settle the nation, without consulting any longer so misguided a prince.[**]

* Clarendon, vol. v. p. 88

** Cl. Walker, p. 70.

Cromwell, after giving an ample character of the valor, good affections, and godliness of the army, subjoined, that it was expected the parliament should guide and defend the kingdom by their own power and resolutions, and not accustom the people any longer to expect safety and government from an obstinate man, whose heart God had hardened; that those who, at the expense of their blood, had hitherto defended the parliament from so many dangers, would still continue, with fidelity and courage, to protect them against all opposition in this vigorous measure. “Teach them not,” added he, “by your neglecting your own safety and that of the kingdom, (in which theirs too is involved,) to imagine themselves betrayed, and their interests abandoned to the rage and malice of an irreconcilable enemy, whom, for your sake, they have dared to provoke. Beware,” and at these words he laid his hand on his sword, “beware, lest despair cause them to seek safety by some other means than by adhering to you, who know not how to consult your own safety.”[*] Such arguments prevailed; though ninety-one members had still the courage to oppose. It was voted, that no more addresses be made to the king, nor any letters or messages be received from him; and that it be treason for any one, without leave of the two houses, to have any intercourse with him. The lords concurred in the same ordinance.[**]

By this vote of non-addresses,—so it was called,—the king was in reality dethroned, and the whole constitution formally overthrown. So violent a measure was supported by a declaration of the commons no less violent. The blackest calumnies were there thrown upon the king; such as, even in their famous remonstrance, they thought proper to omit, as incredible and extravagant: the poisoning of his father, the betraying of Rochelle, the contriving of the Irish massacre.[***] By blasting his fame, had that injury been in their power, they formed a very proper prelude to the executing of violence on his person.