The Southwarkers kept their word, for they received Rainsborough and his troops; the militia openly fraternised with the soldiers, shaking hands with them through the gates, and abandoned to them the works which protected the City. Rainsborough took possession, without opposition, of all the forts and works on that side of the river from Southwark to Gravesend. In the morning the authorities of the City, finding that Southwark was in possession of the army, and the City gate on that side in their hands, were completely prostrated and hastened to make their submission. Poyntz, accustomed to conquest in the field, and the hardihood of the Presbyterian soldiers, was filled with contempt for these cringing, cowering citizens. What! had they not ten thousand men in arms, a loan of ten thousand pounds arranged and orders to raise auxiliary troops to the amount of eighteen regiments? Had they not plenty of ammunition and arms in the Tower, whence they had drawn four hundred barrels of gunpowder and other material for present defence? But all availed not; the citizens hastened to lay themselves and the City at the feet of Fairfax. He had fixed his headquarters at Hammersmith, but he met the civic authorities at Holland House, Kensington, where he dictated the following conditions:—That they should abandon the Parliament now sitting and the eleven impeached members; should restore the militia to the Independents; surrender all their forts, including the Tower; recall their declarations, and conduct themselves peaceably.

On Friday, the 6th of August, Fairfax entered the City, preceded by a regiment of infantry and another of cavalry. He was on horseback, attended by his body-guards and a crowd of gentlemen. A long train of carriages, containing the fugitive Speakers and members (Lords and Commons), followed, and then another regiment of cavalry. The soldiers marched three abreast, with boughs of laurel in their hats. The late turbulent multitudes completed their shame by raising forced acclamations as they passed. Fairfax thus proceeded through Hyde Park, where the Corporation met him, and offered him a great gold cup, which he curtly declined, and so rode on to the Houses of Parliament, where he replaced the Speakers in their respective chairs, and the members in their old places. Not one of the Lords who had remained, except the Earl of Pembroke, ventured to appear, and he declared that he considered the proceedings since the departure of the Speakers as null. No sooner were the Speakers in their places than Parliament voted thanks to the general and the army; made Fairfax commander of all the forces in England and Wales, and Constable of the Tower. It ordered a gratuity of a month's pay for the army, and that the City militia should be divided, and Southwark, Westminster, and the Tower Hamlets should command their own. The Lords voted all Acts of Parliament from the departure of the Speakers, on the 26th of June, to their return on the 6th of August, void; but the resolution did not pass the Commons, where there was a large body of Presbyterians, without much opposition.

The eleven impeached members fled, and were allowed to escape into France, whereupon they were voted guilty of high treason, as well as the Lord Mayor and four aldermen of London, two officers of the train-band, and the Earls of Suffolk, Lincoln, and Middleton, the Lords Willoughby, Hunsdon, Berkeley, and Maynard. The civic officers were sent to the Tower. The City was ordered to find the one hundred thousand pounds voted for the army. Fairfax distributed different regiments about Whitehall and the Houses of Parliament for their protection, and others in the Strand, Holborn, and Southwark, to keep the City quiet. His headquarters were moved to Putney, with forces at Chelsea and Fulham. On Sunday he and the officers attended the preaching of Hugh Peters, the army chaplain, at Putney Church, and thus the Independents were in full power, and the Presbyterians signally humbled.

Before, and also whilst, these events had been taking place, the army had made overtures to the king for peace and a solid settlement of the kingdom. As we have seen, from the moment that the king came into their hands, they had treated him in a far different style to the Presbyterians. He seemed, in his freedom of action, in the admission of his children and friends to his society, in the respect and even friendliness shown him to feel himself a king again. There were many reasons why the Independents should desire to close with the king. Though they had the army with them, they knew that the Presbyterians were far more numerous. London was vehemently Presbyterian, and the Scots were ready to back that party, because essentially the same in religion as themselves. The Independents and all the Dissenters who ranged themselves under their banners were anxious for religious liberty; the Scottish and English Presbyterians had no more idea of such a thing as belonging to Christianity than had the Catholics or the Church of England as represented by Charles and Laud.

From the moment that the king was received by the army, he seems to have won on the goodwill of the officers. Fairfax, on meeting him on his way from Holmby, kissed his hand, and treated him with all the deference due to the sovereign. Cromwell and Ireton, though they did not so far condescend, and kept a degree of distant reserve, as remembering that they had to treat Charles as an enemy, were soon softened, and Cromwell sent him assurances of his attachment, and of his desire to see his affairs set right. Many of the officers openly expressed commiseration of his misfortunes, and admiration of his real piety, and his amiable domestic character. It was not long before such relations were established with him, and with his confidential friends Berkeley, Ashburnham, and Legge, that secret negotiations were commenced for a settlement of all the difficulties between him and his people. The officers made him several public addresses expressive of their sincere desire to see a pacification effected; and Fairfax, to prepare the way, addressed a letter to the two Houses, repelling the aspersion cast upon the army of its being hostile to the monarchy, and avowing that "tender, equitable, and moderate dealings towards him, his family, and his former adherents," should be adopted to heal the feuds of the nation.

LORD CLARENDON. (After the Portrait by Sir Peter Lely.)

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It has been the fashion to consider Cromwell as a consummate hypocrite, and to regard all that he did as a part acted for the ultimate attainment of his own ends. This is the view which Clarendon has taken of him; but, whatever he might do at a later period, everything shows that at this time both he and his brother officers were most really in earnest, and, could Charles have been brought to subscribe to any terms except such as gave up the nation to his uncontrolled will, at this moment his troubles would have been at an end, and he would have found himself on a constitutional throne, with every means of honour and happiness in his power. Nothing more convincingly demonstrates this than the conditions which the Parliament submitted to him. They, in fact, greatly resembled the celebrated conditions of peace offered at Uxbridge, with several propositions regarding Parliament and taxation, which mark a wonderfully improved political knowledge and liberality in the officers. They did not even insist on the abolition of the hierarchy, but merely stipulated for the toleration of other opinions, taking away all penalties for not attending church, and for attending what were called conventicles. The command of the army by Parliament was to be restricted to ten years; only five of the Royalist adherents were to be excluded from pardon, and some less objectionable mode of protecting the State against Catholic designs than the present oppressive laws against recusants was to be devised. Parliaments were to continue two years, unless dissolved earlier by their own consent; and were to sit every year for a prescribed term, or a shorter one, if business permitted. Rotten boroughs, or such as were insignificant, were to be disfranchised, and a greater number of members returned from the counties in proportion to the amount of rates; and all that regarded election of members or reforms of the Commons should belong exclusively to the Commons. There were very judicious regulations for the nomination of sheriffs and of magistrates; the excise was to be taken from all articles of life at once, and from all other articles very shortly: the land-tax was to be fairly and equally apportioned; the irritating maintenance of the clergy by tithes was to be done away with; suits at law were to be made less expensive; all men to be made liable for their debts; and insolvent debtors who had surrendered all their property to their creditors were to be discharged.

The whole project was decidedly creditable to the officers of the army. Charles's own friends and advisers were charmed with it, and flattered themselves that at length they saw a prospect of ending all troubles; but they were quickly undeceived, and struck down in dumb astonishment by Charles rejecting them.