Cassell's History of England, Vol. 2 (of 8) / From the Wars of the Roses to the Great Rebellion

by Anonymous

Here was a spectacle which would have shown the folly of his career to any other monarch; but all reason or representation was wasted on Charles. Traquair entreated him, before plunging into war, to listen to the counsels of his most experienced Scottish Ministers; but Charles seldom listened to anything except his own self-will, or any person except his fatal counsellors, Laud and Wentworth. He is said on this occasion to have consulted with a small council of Scotsmen living in England, which had been formed by James on his accession to the English throne, and in accordance with their advice and in opposition to that of the Council in Scotland, he resolved on suppressing the Covenant by force.

In May he sent the Marquis of Hamilton to Scotland, with orders to endeavour to soothe the people by assuring them that the liturgy and canons should only be exercised in a fair and gentle manner, and that the High Commission Court should be so remodelled as to be no grievance. If these promises did not satisfy them, as Hamilton must have known they would not, for Charles's promises were too notorious to be of any value, he was to resort to any exercise of force that he thought necessary.

On the 3rd of June he arrived at Berwick, and sent to the nobility to meet him at Haddington; but no one appeared except the Earl of Roxburgh, who assured him that anything but a full revocation of the canons and liturgy was hopeless. On reaching Dalkeith he was waited on by Lord Rothes, who, on the part of the Covenanters, invited him to take up his abode in Holyrood as more convenient for discussion.

Hamilton objected to enter a city swarming with Covenanters, where the castle was already invested by their guards. These, it was promised him, should be removed and the city kept quiet, on which he consented; and on the 8th of June he set forward. But he found the whole of the way, from Musselburgh to Leith and from Leith to Edinburgh, lined with Covenanters, fifty thousand in number. There were from five to seven hundred clergymen collected; and all the nobility and gentry assembled in the capital, amounting to five thousand, came out to meet and escort him in. All this he was informed was to do him honour, but he felt that its real design was to impress him with the strength of the Covenant party.

ST. GILES'S CHURCH, EDINBURGH, IN THE 17TH CENTURY.

Being settled in Holyrood, Hamilton received a deputation of the heads of the League, and asked them what they required to induce them to surrender opposition. They replied that in the first place they demanded the summons of a General Assembly and a Parliament. They then renewed the guard at the castle, and doubled the guards and watches of the city. The preachers warned the people to be on their guard against propositions. They informed the marquis that no English Service Book must be used in the royal chapel, and they nailed up the organ as an "abomination to the Lord." They then waited on Hamilton, requesting him and his officers to sign the Covenant, as they hoped to be regarded as patriots and Christians. The ministers whom the oppressions of Wentworth had chased out of Ulster to make way for the Anglican service were in Edinburgh, inflaming the people by their details of the cruelties and broken promises of Charles and his Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland.

Hamilton saw that it was useless to publish Charles's proclamation, but wrote advising him to grant them their demands, or to lose no time in appearing with a powerful army. Charles replied desiring him to amuse the Covenanters with any promises that he pleased, so that he did not commit the king himself. He was to avoid granting an Assembly or Parliament, but he added, "Your chief end being now to win time, they may commit public follies until I be ready to suppress them." The marquis, therefore, endeavoured to spin out the time by coaxing and deluding the Covenanters. He promised to call a General Assembly and a Parliament, and redress all their grievances. When pressed too closely, he declared that he would go to London himself and endeavour to set all right with the king; but this was part only of the plan of gaining time whilst Charles was preparing a fleet and army. But the Scots were too wary to be thus deceived. They had information that troops were being raised in England, and they too made preparations. At the same time they waited on the marquis, professing the most unabated loyalty, but resolute to have free exercise of their religion. Hamilton promised to present their address to the king, and set out on the 4th of July for England. He informed Charles of the real state of the country, and that the very members of the Privy Council were so infected by the Covenant that he had not dared to call them together. But Charles was not to be induced to take any effective measures for pacifying the public mind of Scotland. His instructions to the marquis were to amuse the people with hopes, and to allow of the sitting of a General Assembly, but not before the 1st of November. He was even to publish the order for discharging the use of the Service Book, the canons, and the High Commission Court, but was to forbid the abolition of bishops, though the bishops were for the present not to intrude themselves into the Assembly. They were, however, to be privately held to be essentially members of the Assembly, and were to be one way or other provided for till better times.

These half measures were not likely to be accepted, but they would serve Charles's grand object of gaining time, and the marquis arrived with them in Edinburgh on the 10th of August. Three days after his arrival the Covenanters waited upon him to learn how the king had received their explanations, and the marquis assured them with much grace and goodness; but when they heard that the bishops were not to be abolished, they treated his other offers with contempt, and Hamilton once more proposed to journey to England to endeavour to obtain a full and free recall of all the offensive ordinances. Before taking his leave, as a proof of his earnestness, he joined with the Earls of Traquair, Roxburgh, and Southesk, in a written solicitation to his Majesty to remove all innovations in religion which had disturbed the peace of the country. By the 17th of September Hamilton was again at Holyrood. On the 21st he received the Covenanters and informed them that he had succeeded; that the king gave up everything; that an Assembly was to be called immediately, and a Parliament in the month of May next; and that the king revoked the Service Book, the Book of Canons, the five Articles of Perth, and the High Commission. The Covenanters were about to express their unbounded satisfaction and loyal gratitude, when the marquis added that his Majesty only required them to sign the old confession of faith as adopted by King James in 1580 and 1590. This single reservation broke the whole charm; their countenances fell, and they declared that they looked upon this as an artifice merely to set aside their new bond of the Covenant.

In all Charles's most solemn acts the cloven foot showed itself. Even when seeming most honest, there was something which awoke a distrust in him. He was not sincere, and he had not the art to look so. In any other monarch the positive assurance that the innovations on the religion of Scotland should be abandoned, would have settled the matter at once; but Charles had so utterly lost character for truth and good faith that it was believed throughout the country that he was still only deluding them, and seeking time ultimately to come down resistlessly upon them. And we know from his own correspondence preserved in the Strafford Papers that it was so. These words addressed to Hamilton, "Your chief end is to win time, that they may commit public follies, until I be ready to suppress them," are an everlasting proof of it. Besides, they had ample information from friends about the Court in England that this was the case, and that in a few months the king meant to visit them with an irresistible force. The people of England were suffering too much from the same species of oppression not to sympathise warmly with the Scottish patriots, and keep them well informed of what was going on there. We find it asserted in the Hardwicke State Papers that the Government was very jealous of the number of people who went about England selling Scottish linen, and it was recommended to open all letters going between the countries at Berwick.