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The parliament renewed their applications to him, and presented him with the same conditions which they had offered at Newcastle. The king declined accepting them, and desired the parliament to take the proposals of the army into consideration, and make them the foundation of the public sentiment.[*] He still entertained hopes that his negotiations with the generals would be crowned with success; though every thing, in that particular, daily bore a worse aspect. Most historians have thought that Cromwell never was sincere in his professions; and that having by force rendered himself master of the king’s person, and by fair pretences acquired the countenance of the royalists, he had employed these advantages to the enslaving of the parliament; and afterwards thought of nothing but the establishment of his own unlimited authority, with which he esteemed the restoration, and even life, of the king altogether incompatible. This opinion, so much warranted by the boundless ambition and profound dissimulation of his character, meets with ready belief; though it is more agreeable to the narrowness of human views, and the darkness of futurity, to suppose that this daring usurper was guided by events, and did not as yet foresee, with any assurance, that unparalleled greatness which he afterwards attained. Many writers of that age have asserted,[**] 17that he really intended to make a private bargain with the king; a measure which carried the most plausible appearance both for his safety and advancement; but that he found insuperable difficulties in reconciling to it the wild humors of the army.

* Rush. vol. viii. p. 810.

** See note Q, at the end of the volume.

The horror and antipathy of these fanatics had for many years been artfully fomented against Charles; and though their principles were, on all occasions, easily warped and eluded by private interest, yet was some coloring requisite, and a flat contradiction to all former professions and tenets could not safely be proposed to them. It is certain, at least, that Cromwell made use of this reason why he admitted rarely of visits from the king’s friends, and showed less favor than formerly to the royal cause. The agitators, he said, had rendered him odious to the army, and had represented him as a traitor, who, for the sake of private interest, was ready to betray the cause of God to the great enemy of piety and religion. Desperate projects, too, he asserted to be secretly formed for the murder of the king; and he pretended much to dread lest all his authority, and that of the commanding officers, would not be able to restrain these enthusiasts from their bloody purposes.[*]

Intelligence being daily brought to the king of menaces thrown out by the agitators, he began to think of retiring from Hampton Court, and of putting himself in some place of safety. The guards were doubled upon him; the promiscuous concourse of people restrained; a more jealous care exerted in attending his person; all under color of protecting him from danger, but really with a view of making him uneasy in his present situation. These artifices soon produced the intended effect. Charles, who was naturally apt to be swayed by counsel, and who had not then access to any good counsel, took suddenly a resolution of withdrawing himself, though without any concerted, at least, any rational scheme for the future disposal of his person. Attended only by Sir John Berkeley, Ashburnham, and Leg, he privately left Hampton court; and his escape was not discovered till near an hour after; when those who entered his chamber, found on the table some letters directed to the parliament, to the general, and to the officer who had attended him.[**]

* Clarendon, vol. v. p. 76.

** Rush. vol. viii. p 871.

All night he travelled through the forest, and arrived next day at Tichfield, a seat of the earl of Southampton’s, where the countess dowager resided, a woman of honor, to whom the king knew he might safely intrust his person. Before he arrived at this place, he had gone to the sea-coast; and expressed great anxiety that a ship which he seemed to look for, had not arrived; and thence, Berkeley and Leg, who were not in the secret, conjectured that his intention was to transport himself beyond sea.

The king could not hope to remain long concealed at Tichfield: what measure should next be embraced, was the question. In the neighborhood lay the Isle of Wight, of which Hammond was governor. This man was entirely dependent on Cromwell. At his recommendation, he had married a daughter of the famous Hambden, who during his lifetime had been an intimate friend of Cromwell’s, and whose memory was ever respected by him. These circumstances were very unfavorable: yet, because the governor was nephew to Dr. Hammond, the king’s favorite chaplain, and had acquired a good character in the army, it was thought proper to have recourse to him in the present exigence, when no other rational expedient could be thought of. Ashburnham and Berkeley were despatched to the island. They had orders not to inform Hammond of the place where the king was concealed, till they had first obtained a promise from him not to deliver up his majesty, though the parliament and the army should require him; but to restore him to his liberty, if he could not protect him. This promise, it is evident, would have been a very slender security: yet, even without exacting it, Ashburnham imprudently, if not treacherously, brought Hammond to Tichfield; and the king was obliged to put himself in his hands, and to attend him to Carisbroke Castle, in the Isle of Wight where, though received with great demonstrations of respect and duty, he was in reality a prisoner.

ENLARGE

Lord Clarendon[*] is positive, that the king, when he fled from Hampton Court, had no intention of going to this island; and indeed all the circumstances of that historian’s narrative, which we have here followed, strongly favor this opinion. But there remains a letter of Charles’s to the earl of Laneric, secretary of Scotland, in which he plainly intimates, that that measure was voluntarily embraced: and even insinuates, that if he had thought proper, he might have been in Jersey, or any other place of safety.[**] 18

* Page 79, 80, etc.

** See note R, at the end of the volume.

Perhaps he still confided in the promises of the generals; and flattered himself, that if he were removed from the fury of the agitators, by which his life was immediately threatened, they would execute what they had so often promised in his favor.

Whatever may be the truth in this matter,—for it is impossible fully to ascertain the truth,—Charles never took a weaker step, nor one more agreeable to Cromwell and all his enemies. He was now lodged in a place removed from his partisans, at the disposal of the army, whence it would be very difficult to deliver him, either by force or artifice. And though it was always in the power of Cromwell, whenever he pleased, to have sent him thither, yet such a measure, without the king’s consent, would have been very invidious, if not attended with some danger. That the king should voluntarily throw himself into the snare, and thereby gratify his implacable persecutors, was to them an incident peculiarly fortunate, and proved in the issue very fatal to him.

Cromwell, being now entirely master of the parliament and free from all anxiety with regard to the custody of the king’s person, applied himself seriously to quell those disorders in the army, which he himself had so artfully raised, and so successfully employed, against both king and parliament. In order to engage the troops into a rebellion against their masters, he had encouraged an arrogant spirit among the inferior officers and private men; and the camp, in many respects, carried more the appearance of civil liberty than of military obedience. The troops themselves were formed into a kind of republic; and the plans of imaginary republics, for the settlement of the state, were every day the topics of conversation among these armed legislators. Royalty it was agreed to abolish: nobility must be set aside: even all ranks of men be levelled; and a universal equality of property, as well as of power, be introduced among the citizens. The saints, they said, were the salt of the earth: an entire parity had place among the elect; and by the same rule that the apostles were exalted from the most ignoble professions, the meanest sentinel, if enlightened by the Spirit, was entitled to equal regard with the greatest commander. In order to wean the soldiers from these, licentious maxims, Cromwell had issued orders for discontinuing the meetings of the agitators; and he pretended to pay entire obedience to the parliament, whom being now fully reduced to subjection, he purposed to make for the future, the instruments of his authority. But the “levellers,”—for so that party in the army was called,—having experienced the sweets of dominion, would not so easily be deprived of it. They secretly continued their meetings: they asserted, that their officers, as much as any part of the church or state, needed reformation: several regiments joined in seditious remonstrances and petitions:[*] separate rendezvouses were concerted; and every thing tended to anarchy and confusion. But this distemper was soon cured by the rough but dexterous hand of Cromwell. He chose the opportunity of a review, that he might display the greater boldness, and spread the terror the wider. He seized the ringleaders before their companions; held in the field a council of war; shot one mutineer instantly; and struck such dread into the rest, that they presently threw down the symbols of sedition, which they had displayed, and thenceforth returned to their wonted discipline and obedience.[**]