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In this situation it was thought more prudent to submit, and by compliance to stop the fury of the enraged army. The declaration by which the military petitioners had been voted public enemies was recalled, and erased from the journal book.[*] This was the first symptom which the parliament gave of submission; and the army, hoping by terror alone to effect all their purposes, stopped at St. Albans, and entered into negotiation with their masters.

* Rush. vol. vii. p. 503, 547. Clarendon, vol. v. p. 45.

Here commenced the encroachments of the military upon the civil authority. The army, in their usurpations on the parliament, copied exactly the model which the parliament itself had set them in their recent usurpations on the crown.

Every day they rose in their demands. If one claim was granted, they had another ready, still more enormous and exorbitant; and were determined never to be satisfied. At first, they pretended only to petition for what concerned themselves as soldiers: next, they must have a vindication of their character: then, it was necessary that their enemies be punished:[*] at last, they claimed a right of modelling the whole government, and settling the nation.[**]

They preserved, in words, all deference and respect to the parliament; but, in reality, insulted them and tyrannized over them. That assembly they pretended not to accuse: it was only evil counsellors, who seduced and betrayed it.

They proceeded so far as to name eleven members, whom, in general terms, they charged with high treason, as enemies to the army and evil counsellors to the parliament. Their names were Hollis, Sir Philip Stapleton, Sir William Lewis, Sir John Clotworthy, Sir William Waller, Sir John Maynard, Massey, Glyn, Long, Harley, and Nichols.[***] These were the very leaders of the Presbyterian party.

They insisted, that these members should immediately be sequestered from parliament, and be thrown into prison.[****] The commons replied, that they could not, upon a general charge, proceed so far.[v] The army observed to them, that the cases of Strafford and Laud were direct precedents for that purpose.[v*] At last, the eleven members themselves, not to give occasion for discord, begged leave to retire from the house; and the army, for the present, seemed satisfied with this mark of submission.[v**]

Pretending that the parliament intended to levy war upon them, and to involve the nation again in blood and confusion, they required that all new levies should be stopped. The parliament complied with this demand.[v***]

* Rush. vol. vii. p. 509.

** Rush. vol. vii. p. 567, 633, vol. viii. p. 731.

*** Rush. vol. vii. p. 570.

**** Rush. vol. vii. p. 572.

v Rush. vol. vii. p. 592.

v* Rush. vol vii. p. 594. Whitlocke, p. 259.

v** Rush. vol. vii. p. 593, 594.

v*** Rush. vol. vii. p. 572, 574.

There being no signs of resistance, the army, in order to save appearances, removed, at the desire of the parliament to a greater distance from London, and fixed their head quarters at Reading. They carried the king along with them in all their marches.

That prince now found himself in a better situation than at Holdenby, and had attained some greater degree of freedom as well as of consideration with both parties.

All his friends had access to his presence: his correspondence with the queen was not interrupted: his chaplains were restored to him, and he was allowed the use of the liturgy. His children were once allowed to visit him, and they passed a few days at Caversham, where he then resided.[*] He had not seen the duke of Gloucester, his youngest son, and the princess Elizabeth, since he left London, at the commencement of the civil disorders;[**] nor the duke of York, since he went to the Scottish army before Newark. No private man, unacquainted with the pleasures of a court and the tumult of a camp, more passionately loved his family, than did this good prince; and such an instance of indulgence in the army was extremely grateful to him. Cromwell, who was witness to the meeting of the royal family, confessed that he never had been present at so tender a scene; and he extremely applauded the benignity which displayed itself in the whole disposition and behavior of Charles.

That artful politician, as well as the leaders of all parties, paid court to the king; and fortune, notwithstanding all his calamities, seemed again to smile upon him. The parliament, afraid of his forming some accommodation with the army, addressed him in a more respectful style than formerly; and invited him to reside at Richmond, and contribute his assistance to the settlement of the nation. The chief officers treated him with regard, and spake on all occasions of restoring him to his just powers and prerogatives. In the public declarations of the army, the settlement of his revenue and authority was insisted on.[***] The royalists every where entertained hopes of the restoration of monarchy; and the favor which they universally bore to the army, contributed very much to discourage the parliament, and to forward their submission.

* Clarendon, vol. i. p. 51, 52, 57.

** When the king applied to have his children, the
parliament always told him, that they could take as much
care at London, both of their bodies and souls, as could be
done at Oxford. Parl. Hist. vol. xiii. p. 127.

*** Rush. vol. vii. p. 590.

The king began to feel of what consequence he was. The more the national confusions increased, the more was he confident that all parties would at length have recourse to his lawful authority, as the only remedy for the public disorders “You cannot be without me,” said he, on several occasions: “you cannot settle the nation but by my assistance.” A people without government and without liberty, a parliament without authority, an army without a legal master; distractions every where, terrors, oppressions, convulsions: from this scene of confusion, which could not long continue, all men, he hoped, would be brought to reflect on that ancient government under which they and their ancestors had so long enjoyed happiness and tranquillity.

Though Charles kept his ears open to all proposals, and expected to hold the balance between the opposite parties, he entertained more hopes of accommodation with the army. He had experienced the extreme rigor of the parliament. They pretended totally to annihilate his authority: they had confined his person. In both these particulars, the army showed more indulgence.[*] He had a free intercourse with his friends. And, in the proposals which the council of officers sent for the settlement of the nation, they insisted neither on the abolition of Episcopacy, nor on the punishment of the royalists; the two points to which the king had the most extreme reluctance: and they demanded, that a period should be put to the present parliament, the event for which he most ardently longed.

* Warwick, p. 303. Parl. Hist. vol. xvi. p. 40. Clarendon,
vol. *v p. 50.

His conjunction, too, seemed more natural with the generals, than with that usurping assembly who had so long assumed the entire sovereignty of the state, and who had declared their resolution still to continue masters. By gratifying a few persons with titles and preferments, he might draw over, he hoped, the whole military power, and in an instant reinstate himself in his civil authority. To Ireton he offered the lieutenancy of Ireland; to Cromwell the garter, the title of earl of Essex, and the command of the army. Negotiations to this purpose were secretly conducted. Cromwell pretended to hearken to them and was well pleased to keep the door open for an accommodation, if the course of events should at any time render it necessary. And the king, who had no suspicion that one born a private gentleman could entertain the daring ambition of seizing a sceptre, transmitted through a long line of monarchs, indulged hopes that he would at last embrace a measure which, by all the motives of duty, interest, and safety, seemed to be recommended to him.