Page 92 of 159

* Clarendon, vol. iv. p. 750; vol. v. p. 16.

That he might the better conceal his intentions, orders were given at every gate in Oxford for allowing three persons to pass; and in the night the king, accompanied by none but Dr. Hudson and Mr. Ashburnham, went out at that gate which leads to London. He rode before a portmanteau, and called himself Ashburnham’s servant. He passed through Henley, St. Albans, and came so near to London as Harrow on the Hill. He once entertained thoughts of entering into that city, and of throwing himself on the mercy of the parliament. But at last, after passing through many cross roads, he arrived at the Scottish camp before Newark.[*] The parliament, hearing of his escape from Oxford, issued rigorous orders, and threatened with instant death whoever should harbor or conceal him.[**]

The Scottish generals and commissioners affected great surprise on the appearance of the king; and though they paid him all the exterior respect due to his dignity, they instantly set a guard upon him, under color of protection, and made him in reality a prisoner. They informed the English parliament of this unexpected incident, and assured them that they had entered into no private treaty with the king. They applied to him for orders to Bellasis, governor of Newark, to surrender that town, now reduced to extremity; and the orders were instantly obeyed. And hearing that the parliament laid claim to the entire disposal of the king’s person, and that the English army was making some motion towards them, they thought proper to retire northwards, and to fix their camp at Newcastle.[***]

* Rush, vol. vii. p. 267.

** Whitlocke, p. 208.

*** Rush, vol. vii. p. 271. Clarendon, vol. v. p. 23.

This measure was very grateful to the king; and he began to entertain hopes of protection from the Scots. He was particularly attentive to the behavior of their preachers, on whom all depended. It was the mode of that age to make the pulpit the scene of news; and on every great event, the whole Scripture was ransacked by the clergy for passages applicable to the present occasion. The first minister who preached before the king chose these words for his text: “And behold all the men of Israel came to the king, and said unto him, Why have our brethren, the men of Judah, stolen thee away, and have brought the king and his household, and all David’s men with him, over Jordan? And all the men of Judah answered the men of Israel, Because the king is near of kin to us; wherefore then be ye angry for this matter? Have we eaten at all of the king’s cost? or hath he given us any gift? And the men of Israel answered the men of Judah and said, We have ten parts in the king, and we have also more right in David than ye: why then did ye despise us, that our advice should not be first had in bringing back our king? And the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel.”[*] But the king soon found, that the happiness chiefly of the allusion had tempted the preacher to employ this text, and that the covenanting zealots were nowise pacified towards him. Another preacher, after reproaching him to his face with his misgovernment, ordered this psalm to be sung:—

“Why dost thou, tyrant, boast thyself, Thy wicked deeds to praise?”

The king stood up, and called for that psalm which begins with these words,

“Have mercy, Lord, on me, I pray; For men would me devour.”

The good-natured audience, in pity to fallen majesty, showed for once greater deference to the king than to the minister, and sung the psalm which the former had called for.[**]

Charles had very little reason to be pleased with his situation. He not only found himself a prisoner, very strictly guarded: all his friends were kept at a distance; and no intercourse, either by letters or conversation, was allowed him with any one on whom he could depend, or who was suspected of any attachment towards him. The Scottish generals would enter into no confidence with him; and still treated him with distant ceremony and feigned respect. And every proposal which they made him tended further to his abasement and to his ruin.[***]

* 2 Sam. chap. xix. ver. 41,42,43. See Clarendon, vol v. p.
23, 24

** Whitlocke, p. 234.

*** Clarendon, vol. v. p. 30.

They required him to issue orders to Oxford and to all his other garrisons, commanding their surrender to the parliament; and the king, sensible that their resistance was to very little purpose, willingly complied. The terms given to most of them were honorable; and Fairfax, as far as it lay in his power, was very exact in observing them. Far from allowing violence, he would not even permit insults or triumph over the unfortunate royalists; and by his generous humanity, so cruel a civil war was ended, in appearance, very calmly between the parties.

Ormond, having received like orders, delivered Dublin and other forts into the hands of the parliamentary officers. Montrose also, after having experienced still more variety of good and bad fortune, threw down his arms, and retired out of the kingdom.

The marquis of Worcester, a man past eighty-four, was the last in England that submitted to the authority of the parliament. He defended Raglan Castle to extremity; and opened not its gates till the middle of August. Four years, a few days excepted, were now elapsed since the king first erected his standard at Nottingham:[*] so long had the British nations, by civil and religious quarrels, been occupied in shedding their own blood, and laying waste their native country.

The parliament and the Scots laid their proposals before the king. They were such as a captive, entirely at mercy, could expect from the most inexorable victor. Yet were they little worse than what were insisted on before the battle of Naseby. The power of the sword, instead of ten, which the king now offered, was demanded for twenty years, together with a right to levy whatever money the parliament should think proper for the support of their armies. The other conditions were, in the main, the same with those which had formerly been offered to the king.[**]

Charles said, that proposals which introduced such important innovations in the constitution, demanded time for deliberation: the commissioners replied, that he must give his answer in ten days.[***] He desired to reason about the meaning and import of some terms: they informed him, that they had no power of debate; and peremptorily required his consent or refusal. He requested a personal treaty with the parliament. They threatened that, if he delayed compliance, the parliament would, by their own authority, settle the nation.

* Rush. vol. vi. p. 293.

** Rush. vol. vi. p. 309.

*** Rush. vol. vii. p. 319.

What the parliament was most intent upon, was not their treaty with the king, to whom they paid little regard, but that with the Scots. Two important points remained to be settled with that nation: their delivery of the king, and the estimation of their arrears.

The Scots might pretend, that, as Charles was king of Scotland as well as of England, they were entitled to an equal vote in the disposal of his person; and that, in such a case, where the titles are equal, and the subject indivisible, the preference was due to the present possessor. The English maintained, that the king, being in England, was comprehended within the jurisdiction of that kingdom, and could not be disposed of by any foreign nation: a delicate question this, and what surely could not be decided by precedent; since such a situation is not any where to be found in history.[*]

* Rush, vol. vii. p. 339.

As the Scots concurred with the English in imposing such severe conditions on the king, that, notwithstanding his unfortunate situation, he still refused to accept of them, it is certain that they did not desire his freedom: nor could they ever intend to join lenity and rigor together, in so inconsistent a manner. Before the settlement of terms, the administration must be possessed entirely by the parliaments of both kingdoms; and how incompatible that scheme with the liberty of the king, is easily imagined. To carry him a prisoner into Scotland, where few forces could be supported to guard him, was a measure so full of inconvenience and danger, that, even if the English had consented to it, it must have appeared to the Scots themselves altogether uneligible: and how could such a plan be supported in opposition to England, possessed of such numerous and victorious armies, which were, at that time at least seemed to be, in entire union with the parliament? The only expedient, it is obvious, which the Scots could embrace, if they scrupled wholly to abandon the king, was immediately to return, fully and cordially, to their allegiance; and, uniting themselves with the royalists in both kingdoms, endeavor, by force of arms, to reduce the English parliament to more moderate conditions: but, besides that this measure was full of extreme hazard, what was it but instantly to combine with their old enemies against their old friends; and, in a fit of romantic generosity, overturn what, with so much expense of blood and treasure, they had, during the course of so many years, been so carefully erecting?