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CHAPTER IV.

Containing an Outline of Public Affairs from the period of the Self-denying Ordinance, to the Surrender of his Majesty by the Scots to the English Parliament,

THE new form into which the army was cast, opened up for Cromwell a wide path to the accomplishment of all his purposes. In reducing the old regiments, pains were taken to select for the battalions of the new model such officers and soldiers as were most likely to comply with his views in the still greater innovations which he meditated. The rigid Presbyterians were dismissed, and their places filled by Independents; men whose fanatical humours could be more easily excited by the LieutenantGeneral, who, in this respect, was ever ready to supply the defects of military discipline by the more effectual aids of preaching and prayer.

But while the Parliament was engaged in these preparations for war, an attempt was made by commissioners from the King and from the two Houses at Westminster, to negotiate a peace. The meeting took place at Uxbridge, on the 30th of January, 1645, in compliance with the wishes of the moderate on both sides, who were

weary of hostilities, rather than from any expectation entertained by the leaders of either party that the treaty would be attended with a successful issue. The main points submitted to discussion were the Church, the Militia, and Ireland; and the period for deliberation was limited to twenty days. Twenty-six proposi tions, drawn up so as to give mutual satisfac tion to the insurgents of England and Scotland, had been presented to the King at Oxford, on the month of November preceding; and these, put into the hands of the Parliamentary Com missioners at Uxbridge, were declared to be the only basis on which the people could treat with their sovereign.

As to religion, it is well known that the legislators of Westminster had, the year before, sanctioned a Presbyterian Directory of public worship, in place of the Liturgy, and had even agreed upon several points of ecclesiastical polity subversive of the established church: to these they required the King's consent, as well as to the acts for abolishing Episcopacy, and for constituting the Assembly of Divines. The royal commissioners were authorized to propose a modified form of Episcopal government, by which the bishops should be precluded from exercising any part of their wonted jurisdiction, without the concurrence of a certain number of presbyters to be chosen by the clergy of their dioceses. But no concession that did not imply a full establishment of the Presbyterian church, could be received by the other party, who, on this head, were deprived of all discretionary power. They were farther instracted

to insist that the Solemn League and Covenant should be rendered obligatory throughout the whole kingdom, and signed even by Charles himself. His Majesty's representatives replied, that he could not conscientiously give way to the proposed change in the religious worship of the nation, but that he would willingly grant every reasonable indulgence to those who might have scruples to join it; and consent, moreover, that L.100,000 towards the liquidation of the public debt, should be raised on the property of the church.

The second point, which respected the power of the sword, presented difficulties neither fewer nor less insuperable than the question of ecclesiastical constitution. The King proposed that the right of appointing officers to the army and navy should be confided for three years to twenty commissioners, ten of whom were to be nominated by himself, and the other ten by the Parliament; on condition that, at the end of the period just stated, the usual authority vested in the crown, should revert undiminished to him or to his heirs. To this the other party would not accede; on the contrary, they demanded that the power in question should be continued to the two Houses for seven years from the conclusion of this treaty, or for three years after the establishment of a firm and durable peace, and then to be permanently defined and disposed of by act of Parliament. As this proposition was obviously meant to deprive Charles, during his whole life, of the most efficient article of his prerogative, it is not surprising that his commissioners should have met it with a decided refusal.

The affairs of Ireland appear not to have engaged the same degree of attention which was bestowed upon the army and the church. In truth, the renewal of the war in that country could only have been resolved upon in the event of a successful termination to the treaty on the part of the sectaries; who, in prosecuting hostilities against the Roman Catholics, were influenced more by religious motives, than by consider ations of policy. But the Parliament had be sides reserved a bitter potion for the King in the punishment and proscription of his most distinguished adherents, which they knew well he would not consent to swallow, as long as he had the power of resistance. In the exceptions from pardon embodied in one of their proposi tions, were specially mentioned forty of his English friends, and nineteen belonging to Scotland; together with all such of the latter kingdom as had concurred in the votes at Oxford against that country, or been concerned in the insurrection under Montrose and his partisans. In addition to this, they insisted that all judges, lawyers, bishops, and other public functionaries who had deserted the Parliament, should be rendered for ever incapable of exercising their respective offices, and that a third part of their estates should be forfeited to the public for payment of the national debt. As to all other de

linquents, they demanded that a tenth part of their property, if it exceeded L.200 in value, or even the half of that sum if they had actually carried arms, should likewise be seized for public uses.

In a word, neither King nor Parliament ex

pected, and it is equally certain that neither desired, the accomplishment of this celebrated treaty, in the peculiar circumstances in which they were relatively placed at the period when its deliberations commenced. Each looked for a favourable change in the aspect of affairs. The popular party were about to prepare for the field an army which they knew would have no other object but conquest, and the final establishment of their power. Charles, on the other hand, was not without hope that the arms of Montrose in Scotland, and a powerful reinforcement of soldiers from the sister island, would enable him in the spring to meet his enemies on equal terms, and to recover, during the summer of 1645, all that he had lost in the course of the late campaign.

Dr Wellwood tells a story, which has been repeated by the author of the Critical History of the Life of Cromwell, the object of which is to account for the failure of the treaty of Uxbridge, on the supposition that Charles would have yielded to the demands of the parliamentary commissioners, had he not received, during the negotiations, a letter from the Marquis of Montrose, dissuading him from all concessions. We are told, on this authority, that the Earl of Southampton, who is represented as having been extremely desirous for an accommodation, had posted to Oxford, where he fell at the feet of the King, and entreated him to accept the proposals offered by the enemy, at whatever expense it might be to his personal feelings. His Majesty is said to have consented, and to have even promised to sign a warrant to that effect

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