purple, the Prince was asked to take the Sword of State in defence of The Coronathe Faith, the Church, the Covenants, and Justice. Douglas prayed tion at Scone. God to purge the Crown of the sins of Charles. Argyll placed it on his head. The nobles touched it and swore allegiance. The Earl of Crawford and Lindsay placed the sceptre in his hand, whereupon Argyll conducted him to the throne. For the first time in the national history had laymen ousted the Church from the office of proffering the symbols of sovereignty to the Monarch. Again Douglas interpreted the function, and warned Charles of the Stuart sins. A royal pardon was proclaimed. The King showed himself to the crowd, who shouted 'God save the King.' On his return, the catalogue of the Scots Kings was recited. The Lords swore to be the King's liegemen according to the Covenants, then kissed the royal cheek. Standing, Charles received the benediction. Douglas had still his peroration to give, and, harping on the Covenants, adjured ruler and ruled that if they broke the Covenants, God would turn the King from his throne and the nobles from their possessions. Charles, in order to evince his ingenuousness and sincerity, appealed to his lieges, 'that if in any time coming they did hear or see him breaking that Covenant, they would tell him of it, and put him in mind of his oath.'1 a Covenanted King James was once more flagellated, and then the climax was Charles, now reached—'Sir, you are the only Covenanted King with God and His King. people in the world. . . . Be strong and show yourself a man! The congregation sung the Twentieth Psalm, Prayer followed. concluding 'Deliver, Lord, and let the King Us hear, when we do call.'2 After the benediction was pronounced, the King, robed, sceptred, and crowned, escorted by the Court, re-entered the palace before returning to Perth. When night descended the hill-tops gleamed with bonfires. 1 Somers, Tracts, vi. 117; Row, Blair, 256. 2 Form of the Coronation, Aldis, List, 1441-4. The secret policy of Charles. For an indecent outrage on religion and patriotism one could not readily find a match to that perpetrated at Scone by the libertine, Charles. Charles now had a good pretext for encouraging his secret aim to revenge his father's death, to oust and destroy the regicides, and to establish the autocracy cherished by the Stuart Kings. At the head of a Scottish army of Royalists, he might retrieve the fortunes of his house. In one ignorant of the complications of the times such enthusiasm was natural; and there was an unpardonable insult in the shrewd counsel of the Hope brothers, Craighall and Hopetoun, that Charles should 'treatt with Cromwell for one half of his cloake before he lost the quhole." He ostracised the Hopes and sought temporary comfort in the advice of Argyll, whose own influence was waning on account of his defection from the extremists of his own party. The increasing success of the new policy, whereby the King was surrounded by former opponents of the rigid system of the Covenanters, resulted in the depreciation of Argyll. Charles had already craved Hamilton to try to mitigate that 'rigidness,' and in the recall of Hamilton there was the plain signal to Argyll that his power was on the wane. Taking the hint, Argyll left the Court. Yet, because Charles conceived that the lever of Presbyterianism in Scotland and England could raise him to dominion, he tried to fulfil his Covenanted promises; and, to accomplish the end in view, offered to marry Charles II. and Argyll's daughter, Ann. He asked his mother to approve of this sacrifice to a hated faith. But the Queen-mother and Cardinal Mazarin abhorred the regicide tribe and their compatriots, and rejected the base artifice. No one could imagine Charles implementing his betrothal after he had utilised Argyll and his redshanks in the victorious campaign of his imagination. In due course the match was departed from." Lady Ann The raising of the northern levies went on apace, notwithstanding the vituperations of the Remonstrant clergy. For their offence of 1 Balfour, iv. 239. 2 Gardiner, Hist. of Commonwealth, i. 201, 349, 352-citing authorities. preaching against the resolutions 'as involving ane conjunctione with the malignant partie in the land,' which they considered contrary to the Word and Covenant, James Guthrie and David Bennet, ministers of Stirling, were cited before the Committee of Estates and ordered to remain in ward in Perth for a time. On 20th February, they in turn refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Crown in such a purely ecclesiastical cause.1 ་ meets at Perth, 13th March Charles sat with the Parliament when it met in Perth on 13th Parliament March under the presidency of Lord Burleigh, who superseded Lord Loudoun. The latter too much favoured 'the Campbell faction' to 1651. be retained in the chair at this crisis. The chief business was to elect Charles to be generalissimo of the army, to restore the known friends of the throne, and to propound a query to the Commission of the Church as to the advisability of reponing on the Committee of Estates those persons debarred under former acts of disability. While the Commission declined to give a full categorical answer to the query, as before stated (p. 25), they recommended the employment of all penitents, excepting a few notable persons. They further supported this recommendation by the issue from Perth, 20th March 1651, of an Exhortation and Warning,' in reality a patriotic manifesto, adjuring the people to rise under the King and defend their country. Even this was not a sufficient concession. The Commission of Assembly was next asked to agree to a repeal of the 'Act of Classes' and to promote a 'general unity.' The Commission, before agreeing to this recalcitrant measure, stipulated that Parliament should first pass a statute 'for the security of religion, the worke of Act securing Reformation, and persons quho have beine steadfast in the Covenant and causse.' The King took an active part in the appointment of a War Committee, which provoked so much dissent from the Argyll party that the Chancellor and Lothian flouted the King with deserting his friends who set him on the throne. This desertion was more apparent after the return of the envoy with the ultimatum that Lady 1 Peterkin, Records, 639; Balfour, iv. 247-53, 263. Covenanters. Ann Campbell was not to be Queen. The new national policy was not to be guided by Argyll, at least. The Parliament met in Stirling in May, gave the Church the demanded security in an Act ratifying other relative Acts since 1649, and providing a bond whereby those excluded from Parliament should be readmitted on binding themselves not to carp at these Acts and Act of Classes their consequences. The Act of Classes, 1646, and the Act of 1649 were repealed on 2nd June. The King had proved a match for his astute opponents.1 repealed, 2nd June 1651. Military successes of Cromwell. Charles and Meantime Cromwell had failed to draw Leslie off his strong post on the hills south of Stirling, and had recourse to an unexpected movement. He established a camp under Lambert at North Queensferry, whence Lambert issued to attack and rout a force of Scots under Sir John Brown and Colonel Holborn at Inverkeithing, 20th July, where 2000 Scots fell, and Brown and 1500 men were captured. Cromwell crossed the Forth and marched to Perth, thus getting between the northern army under Middleton and Leslie, and leaving the way into England open for the latter. The apparent peril of the situation was nullified by the arrangements made by Cromwell for the movement of his southern armies. Despair, not courage, constrained the War Committee to essay the rash enterprise to which Cromwell tempted them. They counted on a Royalist rising in England and Wales. They were doomed to disappointThe only man of influence who joined the invaders was the Earl of Derby with 300 retainers. Presbyterians and Episcopalians equally looked askance at the Scots. English Presbyterianism was in a moribund condition, and its leaders knew their own impotency. ment. 2 On 31st July, Charles and Leslie with 20,000 men left Stirling for Carlisle by way of Annandale and Eskdale. Argyll, Loudoun, and the party of conciliation stood aloof from this mad enterprise, and allowed Hamilton and the pretended penitents to march to disaster. Charles 1 Balfour, iv. 301-7; Act. Parl. Scot., VI. ii. 672-7; Act, 8th January 1646; Act, 23rd January 1649: Act. Parl. Scot., VI. i. 503; VI. ii. 143. 2 Hamilton to Crofts, 8th August: Cary, Memoirs, ii. 305. and his 16,000 wearied followers reached Worcester on 22nd August. Four days later he issued a manifesto declaring for the Covenant, and promising an Act of Oblivion for all except the regicides. Cromwell followed hard upon his heels, while the armies of Harrison, Fleetwood, and Lambeth bore down upon Charles. Cromwell, taking the east coast road as far as Durham, crossed central England, passed through Stratford-on-Avon and entered Evesham, between Worcester and London, on 27th August. The Parliamentary forces were double those of the Scots. Worcester, Leslie drew up his army on the right or western bank of the Battle of Severn, in a corner where the Teme joins the Severn, and he 3rd September destroyed the bridge over the Teme. It was the anniversary of the 1651. rout of Dunbar, 3rd September. Cromwell lay to the east across the river. He divided his force into three: one division lay across the road to London, another moved south and lay ready to cross the Severn, and the third crossed in the south and marched up to the Teme. The movement of these two divisions over two bridges of boats succeeded. The Scots were stubbornly driven from hedge to hedge into Worcester city. Charles watched the unequal fight from the cathedral tower. He saw the weakening of the division on the London road, and hurled troops through the Sudbury gate, and himself gallantly charged against the enemy. At first the English gave way. Cromwell himself hurried back over the bridge of boats with reinforcements, and, gallantly leading his men, repelled the Scots and made them break. The Ironsides cut them to pieces. Capturing Fort Royal,' Cromwell turned its guns upon the fugitives fleeing through the streets. Charles was reluctant to fly. 'Shoot me dead,' said he, ‘rather than let me live to see the sad consequences of this day.'1 Into every avenue where the Scots ran they fell into Few escaped death or capture. 1 cleverly prepared traps. The The peasantry helped the regulars to wipe out the invaders. |