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In order to prevent the advance of the Scots upon him, the king agreed to a treaty, and named sixteen English noblemen, who met with eleven Scottish commissioners at Rippon. The earls of Hertford, Bedford, Salisbury, Warwick, Essex, Holland, Bristol, and Berkshire, the lords Kimbolton, Wharton. Dunsmore, Paget, Broke Saville, Paulet, and Howard of Escric, were chosen by the king; all of them popular men and consequently supposed nowise averse to the Scottish invasion, or unacceptable to that nation.[*]
An address arrived from the city of London, petitioning for a parliament; the great point to which all men’s projects at this time tended.[**] Twelve noblemen presented a petition to the same purpose.[***] But the king contented himself with summoning a great council of the peers at York; a measure which had formerly been taken in cases of sudden emergency, but which at present could serve to little purpose. Perhaps the king, who dreaded above all things the house of commons, and who expected no supply from them on any reasonable terms, thought that, in his present distresses, he might be enabled to levy supplies by the authority of the peers alone. But the employing so long the plea of a necessity which appeared distant and doubtful, rendered it impossible for him to avail himself of a necessity which was now at last become real, urgent, and inevitable.
* Clarendon, vol. i. p. 155. ** Rush. vol. iii. p. 1263. *** Clarendon, vol. i. p, 146. Rush. vol. iii. p. 1260. May, p. 66. Warwick, p. 151.
By Northumberland’s sickness, the command of the army had devolved on Strafford. This nobleman possessed more vigor of mind than the king or any of the council. He advised Charles rather to put all to hazard, than submit to unworthy terms as were likely to be imposed upon him.
The loss sustained at Newburn, he said, was inconsiderable and though a panic had for the time seized the army, that event was nothing strange among new levied troops and the Scots, being in the same condition, would no doubt be liable in their turn to a like accident. His opinion therefore was, that the king should push forward and attack the Scots, and bring the affair to a quick decision; and, if he were ever so unsuccessful, nothing worse could befall him than what from his inactivity he would certainly be exposed to.[*] To show how easy it would be to execute this project, he ordered an assault to be made on some quarters of the Scots, and he gained an advantage over them. No cessation of arms had as yet been agreed to during the treaty at Rippon; yet great clamor prevailed on account of this act of hostility. And when it was known that the officer who conducted the attack was a Papist, a violent outcry was raised against the king for employing that hated sect in the murder of his Protestant subjects.[**]
It may be worthy of remark, that several mutinies had arisen among the English troops when marching to join the army; and some officers had been murdered merely on suspicion of their being Papists.[***] The petition of right had abolished all martial law; and by an inconvenience which naturally attended the plan, as yet new and unformed, of regular and rigid liberty, it was found absolutely impossible for the generals to govern the army by all the authority which the king could legally confer upon them. The lawyers had declared, that martial law could not be exercised, except in the very presence of an enemy; and because it had been found necessary to execute a mutineer, the generals thought it advisable, for their own safety, to apply for a pardon from the crown. This weakness, however, was carefully concealed from the army, and Lord Conway said, that if any lawyer were so imprudent as to discover the secret to the soldiers, it would be necessary instantly to refute it, and to hang the lawyer himself by sentence of a court martial.[****]
* Nalson, vol. ii. p. 5. ** Clarendon, vol. i. p. 159. *** Rush. vol. iii. 1190, 1191, 1192, etc. May, p. 64. **** Rush. vol. iii. p 1199.
An army new levied, undisciplined, frightened, seditious, ill paid, and governed by no proper authority, was very unfit for withstanding a victorious and high-spirited enemy, and retaining in subjection a discontented and zealous nation.
Charles, in despair of being able to stem the torrent, at last determined to yield to it: and as he foresaw that the great council of the peers would advise him to call a parliament, he told them, in his first speech, that he had already taken this resolution. He informed them likewise, that the queen, in a letter which she had written to him, had very earnestly recommended that measure. This good prince, who was extremely attached to his consort, and who passionately wished to render her popular in the nation, forgot not, amidst all his distress, the interests of his domestic tenderness.[*]
In order to subsist both armies, (for the king was obliged, in order to save the northern counties, to pay his enemies,) Charles wrote to the city, desiring a loan of two hundred thousand pounds. And the peers at York, whose authority was now much greater than that of their sovereign, joined in the same request:[**] so low was this prince already fallen in the eyes of his own subjects.
As many difficulties occurred in the negotiation with the Scots, it was proposed to transfer the treaty from Rippon to London; a proposal willingly embraced by that nation, who were now sure of treating with advantage in a place where the king, they foresaw, would be in a manner a prisoner, in the midst of his implacable enemies, and their determined friends.[***]
* Clarendon, vol. 1. p. 154. Bush. vol. iii. p. 1275. ** Rush. vol. iii. p 1279. *** Rush, vol. iii. p 1805.
1640.
The causes of disgust which for above thirty years had daily been multiplying in England, were now come to full maturity, and threatened the kingdom with some great revolution or convulsion. The uncertain and undefined limits of prerogative and privilege had been eagerly disputed during that whole period; and in every controversy between prince and people, the question, however doubtful, had always been decided by each party in favor of its own pretensions. Too lightly, perhaps, moved by the appearance of necessity, the king had even assumed powers incompatible with the principles of limited government, and had rendered it impossible for his most zealous partisans entirely to justify his conduct, except by topics so unpopular, that they were more fitted, in the present disposition of men’s minds, to inflame than appease the general discontent. Those great supports of public authority, law and religion, had likewise, by the unbounded compliance of judges and prelates, lost much of their influence over the people; or rather had, in a great measure, gone over to the side of faction, and authorized the spirit of opposition and rebellion. The nobility, also, whom the king had no means of retaining by offices and preferments suitable to their rank, had been seized with the general discontent, and unwarily threw themselves into the scale which already began too much to preponderate. Sensible of some encroachments which had been made by royal authority, men entertained no jealousy of the commons, whose enterprises for the acquisition of power had ever been covered with the appearance of public good, and had hitherto gone no further than some disappointed efforts and endeavors. The progress of the Scottish malecontents reduced the crown to an entire dependence for supply: their union with the popular party in England brought great accession of authority to the latter: the near prospect of success roused all latent murmurs and pretensions, which had hitherto been held in such violent constraint; and the torrent of general inclination and opinion ran so strongly against the court, that the king was in no situation to refuse any reasonable demands of the popular leaders either for defining or limiting the powers of his prerogative. Even many exorbitant claims, in his present situation, would probably be made, and must necessarily be complied with.
