Cassell's History of England, Vol. 3 (of 8) / From the Great Rebellion to the Fall of Marlborough.

by Anonymous

THE GREAT REBELLION (concluded).

The Assembly at Westminster—Trial and Death of Laud—Negotiations at Uxbridge—Meeting of the Commissioners—Impossibility of a Settlement—Prospect of Help to the King from the Continent—Charles agrees to the demands of the Irish Catholics—Discipline and Spirit of the Parliamentary Army—Campaign of the New-modelled Army—Hunting the King—Battle of Naseby—Fairfax in the West—Exploits of Montrose—Efforts of Charles to join Him—Battle of Kilsyth—Fall of Bristol—Battle of Philiphaugh—Last Efforts of the Royalists—Charles Offers to Treat—Discovery of his Correspondence with Glamorgan—Charles Intrigues with the Scots—Flight from Oxford—Surrender to the Scots at Newark—Consequent Negotiations—Proposals for Peace—Surrender of Charles to Parliament.

Whilst these events were happening in the field and the Parliament, other events were occurring also both in England and Scotland, the account of which, not to interrupt the narrative of the higher transactions, has been deferred. From the month of June, 1643, the Synod of divines at Westminster had been at work endeavouring to establish a national system of faith and worship. This Westminster Assembly consisted of one hundred and twenty individuals appointed by the Lords and Commons. They included not only what were called pious, godly, and judicious divines, but thirty laymen, ten lords, and twenty commoners, and with them sat the Scottish commissioners. The Scottish and English Presbyterians had a large majority, and endeavoured to fix on the nation their gloomy, ascetic, and persecuting notions; but they found a small but resolute party of a more liberal faith, the Independents, including Vane, Selden, and others, whose bearing and spirit, backed by Cromwell, Whitelock, St. John, and others in Parliament, were more than a match for this overbearing intolerance. On the subject of Church government, therefore, there could be no agreement. Cromwell demanded from the House of Commons an act of toleration, and that a Committee should be formed of deputies from both Houses and from the Assembly to consider it. The subject was long and fiercely debated, the Lords Say and Wharton, Sir Henry Vane, and St. John contending for the independence of the Church from all bishops, synods, and ruling powers. The only thing agreed on was, that the English Common Prayer-book should be disused, and a Directory of worship introduced which should regulate the order of the service, the administration of the Sacrament, the ceremonies of marriage and burial—but left much liberty to the minister in the matter of his sermons. This Directory was, by an ordinance of both Houses, ordered to be observed both in England and Scotland.

Poor old Archbishop Laud, who was still in prison, was in the turmoil of civil war almost totally forgotten. But the Puritans of England and the people of Scotland needed only a slight reminder to demand the punishment of the man who, with so high a hand, had trodden down their liberties and their religion. This was given them by the Lords, who, insisting on appointing ministers to livings in his gift, called on Laud to collate the vacant benefices to such persons as they should nominate. The king forbade him to obey. At length, in February, 1643, the rectory of Chartham, in Kent, became vacant by the death of the incumbent, the Lords nominated one person, the king another, and Laud, placed in a dilemma dangerous to his life under his circumstances, endeavoured to excuse himself by remaining passive. But the Lords, in the month of April, sent him a peremptory order, and on his still delaying, sent a request to the Commons to proceed with his trial. There were fourteen articles of impeachment already hanging over his head, and the Commons appointed Prynne, still smarting under the ear-lopping, branding, and cruelties of the archbishop, to collect evidence and co-operate with a Committee on the subject.

What an apparition must that earless man, with those livid brand marks on his cheeks, have been as he entered the cell of Laud, and told him that the day of retribution was come! Prynne collected all his papers, even the diary which he had been so long employed in writing, as the defence of his past life, and sought everywhere for remaining victims and witnesses of the archbishop's persecutions and cruelties, to bring them up against him. In six months the Committee had obtained evidence enough to furnish ten new articles of impeachment against him, and on the 4th of March, 1644, more than three years after his commitment, Laud was called upon to take his trial. He demanded time to consult his papers, and to have them for that purpose restored, to have counsel, and money out of the proceeds of his estate to pay his fees and other expenses. He was not likely to find much more tenderness from his enemies than he had showed to them; the Scots demanded stern justice upon him, as the greatest enemy which their country had known for ages. Time was given him till the 12th of March, when he was brought to the bar of the House of Lords. There, after the once haughty but now humbled priest had been made to kneel a little, Mr. Serjeant Wild opened the case against him, and went over, at great length, the whole story of his endeavours to introduce absolutism in Church and State in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the dreadful cruelties and oppressions which he had inflicted on the king's subjects in the Star Chamber and High Commission Courts.

When he had done, Laud defended himself from a written paper, contending that though he had leaned towards the law, he had never intended to overthrow the laws, and that he had in the Church laboured only for the support of the external form of worship, which had been neglected. But the hearers had not forgotten the "Thorough," nor the utter suppression of all forms of religion but his own, the sweeping away utterly of the faith of Scotland, and the substitution of Arminianism and the liturgy.

It was not till the 2nd of September that Laud was called to the bar of the Lords to deliver his recapitulation of the arguments in answer to his charges. Mr. Samuel Brown, a member of the Commons, and a Manager of the trial, replied to them. Laud was then allowed counsel to speak to the parts of law, who took the same course of defence as had been taken in the case of Strafford, declaring that the prisoner's offence did not amount to high treason, and the Commons then adopted their plan in Strafford's case, of proceeding by attainder. He was, therefore, on the 2nd of November, brought to the bar of their own House, where Mr. Brown repeated the sum of the evidence produced in the Lords, and Laud was called on to reply himself to the charges. He demanded time to prepare his answer, and obtained eight days. On the 11th of November he was heard, and Brown in reply; and the Commons the same day passed their Bill of Attainder, finding him fully convicted of the offences charged against him. On the 16th they sent up this Bill to the Lords; but it was not till the 4th of January, 1645, that the Lords also passed the Bill, and soon after fixed the day of his execution for the 10th. The last effort to save the old man's life was by the production of a pardon which had been prepared at Oxford, as soon as the danger of his conviction was seen, and was signed and sealed by the king. This pardon was read in both Houses, but was declared of no effect, the king having no power to pardon a crime adjudged by Parliament. On the appointed day, the archbishop was beheaded on Tower Hill. Meanwhile some useless negotiations had been set on foot by the Presbyterian party at Uxbridge.

Charles had, during the last summer, after every temporary success, proposed negotiations, thus showing his readiness to listen to accommodation, and throwing on the Parliament the odium of continued warfare. At the same time it must be confessed that he was by no means inclined to accept terms which would surrender altogether his prerogative, or sacrifice the interests of those who had ventured everything for him. He was constantly exhorted by the queen from France to make no peace inconsistent with his honour, or the interests of his followers. She contended that he must stipulate for a bodyguard, without which he could enjoy no safety, and should keep all treaty regarding religion to the last, seeing plainly the almost insuperable difficulty on that head; for since nothing would satisfy the Puritans but the close binding down of the Catholics, that would effectually cut off all hope of his support from Ireland, or from the Catholics of England. Charles, in fact, was in a cleft stick, and the contentions of his courtiers added so much to his embarrassments, that he got rid of the most troublesome by sending them to attend the queen in France. He then assembled his Parliament for the second time, but it was so thinly attended, and the miserable distractions which rent his Court were so completely imported into its debates, that he was the more disposed to accept the offer of negotiation with the Parliament. His third proposal, happening to be favoured by the recommendation of the Scots, was at length acceded to by Parliament, but the terms recommended by the Scots—the recognition of Presbytery as the national religion, and the demands of the Parliament of the supreme control not only of the revenue but of the army—rendered negotiations from the first hopeless.

In November, 1644, the propositions of the Scots, drawn up by Johnston of Wariston, were sent to the king by a Commission consisting of the Earl of Denbigh, the Lords Maynard and Wenman, and Mr. Pierpoint, Denzil Holles, and Whitelock, accompanied by the Scottish Commissioners—Lord Maitland, Sir Charles Erskine, and Mr. Barclay.