I shall pass over all the affair of the king's trial, as a matter commonly known ; but must not omit what bishop Burnet relates, that commissioners were seat from Scotland, to protest against putting the king to death. They laid indeed a great load upon the king : but by a clause in the covenant, to which they had fworn, by the terms upon which Scotland had engaged in the war, and by the folemn declarations that they had so often published to the world, they were obliged, they said, to be faithful in the preservation of his majesty's person. Cromwell undertook to answer them, by ihewing, " that a breach of trust in a king ought to be punilhed more than any other crime whatever : that they had sworn to the preservation of the king's person, only in defence of the

true

who lay at Farnham on the 22d, and was delivered up at Windsor-castle the day following, colonel Harrison commanded the guards about him. Soon after, the council of war was ordered, “ that nothing fhould be done upon the knee to the king ; that all ceremonies of state used to him should be left off, and his attendance should be with fewer persons and at less charge.” Next day the committee of the commons, which had been appointed to draw up a charge against the king, reported an ordinance" for impeaching Charles Stuart king of England of hightreason ; and for trying him by commiffioners to be nominated in the said ordinance ;. which being agreed to by the commons, was on January 2d, carried up to the lords for their concurrence. But upon their rejecting it, the commons passed these remarkable

First, That the people are, under God, the original of all just power. Secondly, That the commons of England, being chosen by the people, are the supreme power of the nation. Thirdly, That whatever is enacted or declared by them, has the force of law, without the consent of the house of peers.' It was on these votes that all their fubfe. quent proceedings were founded.

Votes.

true religion ; but that when the true religion was obstructed by the king, their oath was no farther obligatory: that the covenant did bind them to bring ali malignants, incendiaries, and enemies to the cause, to condign punishment; and that those to whom publick justice had been done, as in the mat. ter of Montrose, were in comparison but small of. fenders ; they acted by commission from the king, who was therefore the principal, and so the most guilty.” Thus Cromwell had manifestly the better of them, upon their own principles.

Another attempt, in favour of the king was made npon the lieutenant-general by his own kinsman, colonel John Cromwell, who came to town with creó dential letters from the states of Holland, wheretowas added a blank, with signets both of the king and the prince, for Cromwell to set down his own conditions, if he would now save his life. The colonel used a great deal of freedom, and even reproached him warmly for turning the king's enemy, after having protested so much in his favour. But the general answered, " that it was not he, but the army, and that times were altered since he had engaged for the king.” And at last, when he could no longer bear his cousin's importunity, he desired he might have till night to confider of it, and that the colonel would wait at his inn till then. But about one in the morning, a messenger came, to inforın the colonel that he might go.

to bed; for the council of officers had resolved, that the king must die.

This resolution was accordingly executed; and king Charles, as bishop Barnet obferves, « died greater than he had lived, thewing, what has often been remarked of the family of the Stuarts, that they bore misfortunes better than prosperity. He was a prince of great devotion and piety, remarkable for ħis temperance and chastity, being an utter enemy to all debauchery. But his reign, both in peace and war, was a continual series of errors ; so that his judgment could hardly be good. He was out of mea.

sure fet

upon following his own humour, but was unreasonably feeble to those he trusted, especially the queen. His notion of regal power was carried too high, and every opposition to it he thought rebellion.

$. 15. Thus, says the anonymous author before quoted, have we got over this dark scene, in which our lieutenant-general is commonly supposed to be chiefly concerned. But as it is not strange he should, if the flory of the king's dealing deceitfully with him be true; so it may more realonably be concluded, that his son-in-law Ireton, rather than he, was the person who chiefly influenced in these proceedings. I know Ireton is fupposed all along to have acted by Cromwell's directions ; but whether he did or no, may, I think, in many cases be questioned. Ireton was certainly a zcalous commonwealth’s-man, which party was always averse to any treaty with the king ; and though he with Cromwell was in such a treaty, he never really intended to close with the king ; but only to lay his party asleep, whilst they were contesting with the presbyterian interest in parliament: but he says no such thing of Cromwell, whom he seems all along to be angry with, for his design of making an agreement with the king, being himself utterly averse to it, and supposing Cromwell's main end was to gratify his own ambition ; which is not unlikely ; and yet he might have been in earnest in the treaty, and also have designed the publick good.' Cromliell was certainly no commonwealth's-man, though he was forced to humour, and in many things actually to comply with the party : and as the agitators, and their offspring the levellers, who were no other than the commonwealth's-men in the army, and whom it is likely Cromwell at first might inake use of to bring about some of his designs, were the original contrivers and chief actors in the king's death ; fo whattver hand Cromwell had in it, seems to be chiefly cwing to their fury and desperate resolutions, which

made him apprehensive of the greatest danger, if he did not comply with their designs; though at the fame time, the contradiétions that appeared in the king's conduct, might the more eafily incline hiin to join purposes with them.

In short, what with the danger that threatend his person, if he had persifted to oppose the design of the levellers ; and what with the consideration of the king's past mif-government, which had been the original cause of all the evils the nation had suffered, and the fear of the like happening for the future, if he should be restored ; he having discovered himself to be of a very inconstant and wavering, not to say equivocating, temper; Cromwell was at length to wrought upon, as to think it necessary, and so lawful, to take off the king ; in which towards the last he feemed to be pretty active, though always in some doubt about it. We are exprefly told, he at first shewed some repugnance to so black an undertaking, as my author calls it, and seemed to fhew an abhorrence of it, and not to surmount it, as he said himself, but only because he saw that the providence of God, and the necessity of the times, had inspired the army to make so terrible a sacrifice ; but that that sacrifice, after all, was the only one that could save the state and religion. And Í cannot here omit what bihop Burnet fays of this matter : he tells us, that Ireton was the person that drove on the king's trial and death, and that Cromwell was all the while in fome fufpence about it. “ Ireton, says he, had the principles and the temper of a Cassius in him : he stuck at nothing that might have turned England to a commonwealth ; and he found out Cook and Bradshaw, two bold lawyers, as proper instruments for managing iti' And we are informed by others, that Ireton was the person who wrought upon Fairfax, and managing the affair of the army's remonftrance, and purging the parliament.

108

A Critical REVIEW of the $. 16. To conclude, it is apparent in general, that the king's behaviour during the whole course of his troubles, was enough to destroy that confidence which might otherwise have been reposed in him, and to 'alienate the hearts of those who were inclined to his interest. Whatever concessions he at any time made, through the necesity of his affairs, upon the least ad. vantage appearing on his fide, he was ready to revoke them all. And we find, by the letters to his queen, that were taken at the battle of Naseby, how little regard he had for the parliament, and for the rights of the people, about which they were then contending. In one of them he declares “ his intention to make peace with the Irish, and to have 40,000 of them over in England to prosecute the war here ;" and in another he complains,

" that he could not prevail with his mongrel parliament at Oxford, to vote that the houses at Westminster were not a lawful parliament." So little thanks, as * one observes, who was no enemy to his majesty, had those noble lords and gentlemen, for exposing their lives and fortunes in defence of the king in his adversity. What then inight they expect, if he should prevail by conquest? In those letters also, he tells the queen, he would not make a peace with the rebels without her approbation, nor go one jot from the paper she sent him : that in the treaty at Uxbridge, he did not positively own the parliament ; 'it being otherwise to be construed, though they were so simple as not to find it out : and that it was recorded in the notes of the king's council, that he did not acknowledge them a parliament."

so that

§. 17. Concerning the defeat of this treaty at Uxbridge, Dr. Wellwood gives us the following account..

Many endeavours, says he, were used from time to time, to bring matters to an accommodation by way of treaty ; but still fome one unlucky accident or