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On the other hand, Charles considered that Scotland was never before, under any of his ancestors, so united and so animated in its own defence; yet had often been able to foil or elude the force of England, combined heartily in one cause, and inured by long practice to the use of arms. How much greater difficulty should he find, at present, to subdue by violence a people inflamed with religious prejudices; while he could only oppose to them a nation enervated by long peace, and lukewarm in his service; or, what was more to be dreaded, many of them engaged in the same party with the rebels?[*]

* Rush. vol. iii. p. 936.

Should the war be only protracted beyond a campaign, (and who could expect to finish it in that period?) his treasures would fail him; and for supply he must have recourse to an English parliament, which, by fatal experience, he had ever found more ready to encroach on the prerogatives, than to supply the necessities of the crown. And what if he receive a defeat from the rebel army? This misfortune was far from being impossible. They were engaged in a national cause, and strongly actuated by mistaken principles. His army was retained entirely by pay, and looked on the quarrel with the same indifference which naturally belongs to mercenary troops without possessing the discipline by which such troops are commonly distinguished. And the consequences of a defeat, while Scotland was enraged and England discontented, were so dreadful, that no motive should persuade him to hazard it.

It is evident, that Charles had fallen into such a situation, that whichever side he embraced, his errors must be dangerous. No wonder, therefore, he was in great perplexity. But he did worse than embrace the worst side; for, properly speaking, he embraced no side at all. He concluded a sudden pacification, in which it was stipulated, that he should withdraw his fleet and army; that within eight and forty hours the Scots should dismiss their forces; that the king’s forts should be restored to him; his authority be acknowledged; and a general assembly and a parliament be immediately summoned, in order to compose all differences.[*] What were the reasons which engaged the king to admit such strange articles of peace, it is in vain to inquire; for there scarcely could be any. The causes of that event may admit of a more easy explication.

* Rush vol. iii. p. 945.

The malecontents had been very industrious in representing to the English the grievances under which Scotland labored, and the ill counsels which had been suggested to their sovereign. Their liberties, they said, were invaded; the prerogatives of the crown extended beyond all former precedent; illegal courts erected; the hierarchy exalted at the expense of national privileges; and so many new superstitions introduced by the haughty, tyrannical prelates, as begat a just suspicion that a project was seriously formed for the restoration of Popery. The king’s conduct, surely, in Scotland, had been in every thing, except in establishing the ecclesiastical canons, more legal than in England; yet was there such a general resemblance in the complaints of both kingdoms, that the English readily assented to all the representations of the Scottish malecontents, and believed that nation to have been driven by oppression into the violent counsels which they had embraced. So far, therefore, from being willing to second the king in subduing the free spirit of the Scots, they rather pitied that unhappy people, who had been pushed to those extremities; and they thought, that the example of such neighbors, as well as their assistance, might some time be advantageous to England, and encourage her to recover, by a vigorous effort, her violated laws and liberties. The gentry and nobility, who, without attachment to the court, without command in the army, attended in great numbers the English camp, greedily seized, and propagated, and gave authority to these sentiments: a retreat, very little honorable, which the earl of Holland, with a considerable detachment of the English forces, had made before a detachment of the Scottish, caused all these humors to blaze up at once: and the king, whose character was not sufficiently vigorous or decisive, and who was apt from facility to embrace hasty counsels, suddenly assented to a measure which was recommended by all about him, and which favored his natural propension towards the misguided subjects of his native kingdom.[*]

Charles, having so far advanced in pacific measures, ought, with a steady resolution, to have prosecuted them, and have submitted to every tolerable condition demanded by the assembly and parliament; nor should he have recommenced hostilities, but on account of such enormous and unexpected pretensions as would have justified his cause, if possible, to the whole English nation. So far, indeed, he adopted this plan, that he agreed, not only to confirm his former concessions, of abrogating the canons, the liturgy, the high commission, and the articles of Perth, but also to abolish the order itself of bishops, for which he had so zealously contended.[**] But this concession was gained by the utmost violence which he could impose on his disposition and prejudices: he even secretly retained an intention of seizing favorable opportunities, in order to: recover the ground which he had lost.[***] And one step farther he could not prevail with himself to advance. The assembly, when it met, paid no deference to the king’s prepossessions, but gave full indulgence to their own. They voted episcopacy to be unlawful in the church of Scotland: he was willing to allow it contrary to the constitutions of that church. They stigmatized the liturgy and canons as Popish: he agreed simply to abolish them. They denominated the high commission, tyranny: he was content to set it aside.[****]

* Clarendon, vol. i. p. 122, 123. May, p. 46.

** Rush. vol. iii. p. 946.

*** Burnet’s Memoirs, p. 154 Rush. vol. iii. p. 951.

**** Rush. vol. iii. p. 958, etc.

The parliament, which sat after the assembly, advanced pretensions which tended to diminish the civil power of the monarch; and, what probably affected Charles still more, they were proceeding to ratify the acts of assembly, when, by the king’s instructions,[*] Traquaire, the commissioner, prorogued them. And on account of these claims, which might have been foreseen, was the war renewed; with great advantages on the side of the Covenanters and disadvantages on that of the king.

No sooner had Charles concluded the pacification without conditions than the necessity of his affairs and his want of money obliged him to disband his army; and as the soldiers had been held together solely by mercenary views, it was not possible, without great trouble, and expense, and loss of time, again to assemble them. The more prudent Covenanters had concluded, that their pretensions being so contrary to the interests, and still more to the inclinations, of the king, it was likely that they should again be obliged to support their cause by arms; and they were therefore careful, in dismissing their troops, to preserve nothing but the appearance of a pacific disposition. The officers had orders to be ready on the first summons: the soldiers were warned not to think the nation secure from an English invasion: and the religious zeal which animated all ranks of men, made them immediately fly to their standards as soon as the trumpet was sounded by their spiritual and temporal leaders. The credit which in their last expedition they had acquired, by obliging their sovereign to depart from all his pretensions, gave courage to every one in undertaking this new enterprise.[**]

* Rush vol. iii. p. 955.

** Clarendon, vol. i. p. 125. Rush vol. iii. p. 1023.

1640.

The king, with great difficulty, found means to draw together an army; but soon discovered that all savings being gone, and great debts contracted, his revenue would be insufficient to support them. An English parliament, therefore, formerly so unkind and intractable, must now, after above eleven years’ intermission, after the king had tried many irregular methods of taxation, after multiplied disgusts given to the Puritanical party, be summoned to assemble, amidst the must pressing necessities of the crown.