CHAPTER VI.

Parliament's resolution to disband the army. The army claim a right of petitioning. - Appointment and proceedings of the agitators. - Removal of the King from Holmby House. The army refuse to disband but upon certain conditions. — Their declarations and remonstrances.-Their charge against eleven members. - Force upon the House of Commons. Many of the members quit the House, and retire to the army. The army bring them back to the House. - Propositions of both Houses sent to the King at Hampton Court.- Commitment and impeachment of members concerned in the force upon the House. — The King's answer to the propositions.-The King's escape to the Isle of Wight from Hampton Court. - Custody of the Great Seal.-Duke of York's escape. - Scots army enter the kingdom. - Defeated. — The treaty of Newport.- Removal of the King to Hurst Castle.- Exclusion from the House, by the army, of many members. - New Great Seal. - Trial of the King." His death.

APRIL 1. (1647.) The Commons, says Rushworth, voted that the civil government of Ireland should be thenceforth distinct from the military, and should be by two Lords-Justices as formerly that the military should be by a commander-in-chief, who should be directed by commissioners on the place.

Lieutenant-General Hammond, Colonel Hammond, Lieutenant-Colonel Pride, and other officers, attended the House in obedience to a letter from the House to the General, when the Speaker acquainted Colonel Pride that the House had been informed that he had read a petition, of which the House had an ill sense, at the head of Colonel Harley's regiment; and that threatening speeches had been given out, that those that would not subscribe it, should be cashiered the army. Colonel Pride denied the reading the petition at the head of that regiment, and the threatening speeches used, and the whole charge, as did the others; with which the House was satisfied, and desired them to be careful to suppress it, and that they should go down to the army to their several commands. Sir Thomas Fairfax, in answer to the above letter from the House, informed the Speaker, that

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in consequence, he had ordered the officers, quartered in those parts (Walden, in Essex), to meet at his quarters, where, having communicated the Speaker's letter, they did generally express a very deep sense of their unhappiness in being so misunderstood in their intentions, which were no other than by way of petition to represent those inconveniences which would necessarily befal most of the army after disbanding; desiring that as much as the General should judge fit and reasonable, might be submissively made known to the House of Commons, assuring him that they would wholly acquiesce in whatsoever he should judge reasonable to offer the House, or to grant on their behalf. That he trusted the army would ever manifest their affection to the public by their constant perseverance in their accustomed obedience to all their commands.

April 2. The House voted that the commander of the forces in Ireland should be styled Field-marshal, and be allowed 61. per diem, and appointed Major-general Skippon such field-marshal, and Colonel Massey lieutenant-general of the horse under him.

A petition against the army from Essex, was complained of as having been read in several churches, on the preceding day, by the ministers, to get hands to it. The soldiers, especially the horse, appeared to have been much troubled, and complain why they should not be heard in petitioning, when they saw petitions in their own quarters subscribed in an indirect manner against them: and the horse thereabout talked of drawing to a rendezvous to compose something for vindication.

The House, upon information of this petition, and that it was contrived and first promoted in London, and sent privately into Essex, to get hands to it, to shew its dislike to such petitioning and the great discontent it might occasion in the army in that juncture of time, ordered that the knights of the shire for that county, and for Suffolk and Norfolk, should write to the inhabitants to desist, and to inform them that the Houses were upon a way to dispose of the army as might be most advantageous to the whole kingdom. These petitions were for the speedy disbanding the army.

The soldiers in North Wales appear to have mutinied on account of their arrears of pay, refusing to be disbanded till payment. A petition was also read in the House from the reduced officers under Lord Fairfax's command, most of whom had raised their troops at their own charge, and upon disbanding had not their two months' pay, or fifth part paid them, as others had: and a letter from Sir Thomas Fairfax on their behalf, having been read, a part was ordered to be paid them.

Rushworth relates at large the proceedings of the commissioners from the parliament, with the several regiments quartered at Walden, to induce them to go to Ireland.

April 27. The Commons, says Rushworth, having received a message from the Peers, took into consideration the disbanding the army, and, after a long debate, resolved that the army, horse and foot, should be disbanded with all convenient speed, and that six weeks' pay should be given to them upon their disbanding. Whereupon the officers presented to the House a vindication of their proceedings, which Rushworth gives at length. They therein assert their right of petitioning, in common with their fellow-subjects; nevertheless intending not to present their petition but with the approbation of their ever-honoured general, knowing how watchful their enemies were to make the hardest constructions of all their actions, and represent them to the parliament and to the world under such terms as might render them most odious. The principal objects of this vindication are, indemnity for their proceedings in the late war, as soldiers, for which they assign their reasons; and the payment of their arrears at the time of disbanding.

The House determined to add a fortnight's pay to the six weeks' pay already ordered, upon disbanding, and a fortnight's additional pay to those who should determine to go to Ireland. And after long debate passed the ordinance for the indemnity of the soldiers for all things done by sea or land during the late wars; which afterwards passed the Lords.

May 15. Information came from Walden of the result of the debates between the parliament's commissioners and the officers

and soldiers. The soldiers desired to choose committees from amongst themselves out of every troop and company, to confer together upon the votes of the House, for the satisfaction of the soldiers, for arrears, and for indemnity, and for discovering the distempers of the army. The committee of troopers met at St. Edmundsbury; and the foot, who chose two out of every company, and them to confer with the troopers ; and every foot-soldier gave four-pence a-piece towards defraying the charges of that meeting. Their several returns having been made to the officers, they repaired to the head-quarters therewith, and informed that they found no distemper in the army, but grievances many; and because some regiments differed from others in making known their respective sufferings, it was referred to a committee of general officers to contract into a method what was propounded in general as the sense of the whole army; and that if any particular thing was desired by one regiment which was waved by another, it might not be accepted or presented as the sense of the whole army. The officers accordingly concurred in a draft so formed out of the whole, that all the grievances the army complained of were distinctly set down therein, in the names of the officers and soldiers of the army, and was presented to Field-marshal Skippon, desiring him to present it to the parliament; that a construction might be had of their proceedings, they meddling with nothing but what pertained to them as soldiers.

On the 8th of the same May, a letter from the King to both Houses was read: it was long, and, says Rushworth, well penned. In it he gives his answer to the several propositions sent to him at Newcastle. It was agreed to take it into consideration on a future day.

Upon receiving from the parliament-commissioners with the army an account of their proceedings, the Commons resolved, that all the forces of the kingdom not subscribing for the service of Ireland should be disbanded, excepting those for the garrisons; and referred it to the committee at Derby House to consider of the time and manner of disbanding them.

Upon the commissioners coming to town and making their

report, the House ordered the speedy audit of the soldiers' arrears, and a visible security to be given for so much as should not be paid off upon their disbanding.

The soldiers being still dissatisfied, the House resolved that the common soldiers should have all their arrears, deducting for freequarters, according to the ordinary rules of the army; and the subordinate officers not in commission the like; and the commission officers one month's pay more added to the two months' pay formerly voted; and, it was ordered, that the declaration of the parliament against the army be rased out of the journals of both Houses, which was done.

From Chelmsford came intelligence, that the general's own regiment, of their own accord, were come away with their colours and drums, nearer the army; and that another regiment took away their colours without their colonel's consent.

Intelligence was brought to the House on Saturday, June 5. of the removal of the King from Holmby-house, by Cornet Joyce, and a party of horse, on that day.

The Houses were informed that the rendezvous of the army had been held near Kenford, six miles from Bury St. Edmund's; seven regiments of foot and six of horse appeared. The general also sent them the grounds, inclosed in a letter from the soldiers to himself, for their undertaking the King's removal of themselves; which were chiefly that they had intimation of a design, which they were able to make good, of some, to surprise the King; — that, at the rendezvous, a petition was presented to the general, in the name of the soldiers, the substance whereof was, that they could not be satisfied with their arrears, or other returns, unless they had assurance that their enemies should not be their judges for the future, which it was believed they would insist on; and then follows an humble representation of the dissatisfaction of the army in relation to the late resolutions for so sudden disbanding, showing the particulars of their former grievances, which yet remained unsatisfied; and a solemn engagement of the army, under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax, entered into at the general rendezvous near Newmarket, on the 5th of June, 1657, in which they declare their