There was nothing left but to make peace, and on June 24, 1639, the Treaty of Berwick was signed. If the war had been a farce, the treaty was high comedy. Everything was forgiven, almost anything was promised. The King himself played the leading part in the negotiations with the Scots, who found him “one of the most just, reasonable, sweet persons they had ever seen.” “His Majesty,” wrote a Scot, “was ever the better loved of all that heard him, and he likewise was the more enamoured of us.”
The Scots returned home full of loyalty, with permission to settle their ecclesiastical affairs in their own General Assembly, and their civil affairs in their own Parliament. Charles went back to London, and plotted to nullify his concessions. He refused either to rescind the acts establishing Episcopacy, or to confirm the acts of the Scottish Parliament, and summoned Strafford from Ireland to whip the Scots into their right minds. Strafford had ready both his plan of campaign and his policy. The English navy was to blockade the Scottish ports and destroy their trade. The Irish army was to threaten a landing in West Scotland, or to be transported to Cumberland. The English army was to invade Scotland and from a fortified camp at Leith keep Edinburgh and the Lowlands in awe, till the English Prayer-book was accepted and the bishops restored to their authority; “nay, perchance till I had conformed that kingdom in all, as well for the temporal as ecclesiastical affairs, wholly to the government and laws of England; and Scotland was governed by the King and council of England.” Strafford’s first step on reaching England was to procure the summoning of a Parliament. No Englishman, he thought, could refuse to give his money to the King in such an extremity, against so foul a rebellion. If any man resisted, he should be “laid by the heels,” till he learnt to obey and not to dispute. But he repudiated the suggestion that the King had lost the affections of his people. In April, the Parliament met; its members were described as sober and dispassionate men of whom very few brought ill purposes with them. Amongst them was Cromwell, whose opposition to the “Adventurers” for the drainage of the fens had gained him a seat for the borough of Cambridge. All these sober and dispassionate men united in demanding the restoration of Parliament to its proper place in the constitution. Pym enumerated all the grievances in Church and State, and asserted that their source was the intermission of parliaments, for Parliament was the soul of the body politic. The Commons answered the King’s demand for money by saying that “till the liberties of the House and the kingdom were cleared they knew not whether they had anything to give, or no.” Charles tried to bargain with them, and offered to abolish Ship-money if they gave him £840,000 in return. They demanded not only the abolition of Ship-money but the abolition of the new military charges which the King had imposed on the counties for the support of their train-bands. Hearing that they meant to invite the Lords to make a joint protest against the intended war with the Scots, Charles cut short their project by a sudden dissolution (May 5, 1640). At this stroke moderate men were filled with melancholy, but the faces of the opposition leaders showed “a marvellous serenity.” The cloudy countenance of Cromwell’s cousin, St. John, was lit with an unusual light. “All was well,” he said; “things must be worse before they could be better, and this Parliament would never have done what was necessary to be done.”
With or without Parliament’s aid, Charles was resolved to force the Scots to submission. Some of his council, knowing the emptiness of the exchequer, urged him to stand on the defensive.
“No defensive war,” cried Strafford; “go on vigorously or let them alone. The King is loose and absolved from all rules of government. In an extreme necessity you may do all that your power admits. Parliament refusing, you are acquitted towards God and man. You have an army in Ireland you may employ here to reduce this kingdom. One summer well employed will do it.”
At every step, however, the old difficulties gathered round the King’s path. London refused a loan; France and Spain would lend nothing; even the Pope was applied to for men and money, but in vain. Not a tenth of the Ship-money imposed was paid, and Coat- and Conduct-money were universally refused. In his desperation, Charles thought of debasing the coinage and seizing the bullion which the Spanish Government had sent to England to be coined. The military outlook was equally depressing, for the army was smaller and worse than the army of 1639. The general of the cavalry at Newcastle described his task as teaching cart-horses military evolutions, and men fit for Bedlam and Bridewell to keep the ten commandments. The commander of the infantry in Yorkshire answered, that his mutinous train-bands were the arch-knaves of the country. Of this army, on August 18th, Strafford, half dead but indomitable, was appointed commander-in-chief.
Only a touch was needed to make the fabric of absolutism collapse. As the commander-in-chief was struggling towards his army in a litter, Leslie crossed the Tweed with twenty-five thousand Scots. On August 28th, he forced the passage of the Tyne at Newburn, driving before him the three thousand foot and fifteen hundred horse who strove to defend it. Newcastle was evacuated; Northumberland and Durham fell into Leslie’s power; Strafford met his beaten troops streaming back into Yorkshire with the Scots close on their heels. “Never came any man to so lost a business,” cried the unhappy statesman. It was not only that the army was untrained, necessitous, and cowardly, but the whole country was apathetic or hostile. “An universal affright in all, a general disaffection to the King’s service, none sensible of his dishonour.” With desperate energy Strafford laboured to reorganise his shattered forces, and to keep the Scots out of Yorkshire. At his breath the dying loyalty of the country flashed up into a momentary blaze. It seemed as if the Scottish invasion might revive the forgotten hostility of the two nations.
Vain labours and vainer hopes. Twelve peers presented a petition demanding peace and a Parliament, and another to the same purpose came in from the City of London. Charles called a Council of Peers to patch up a truce with the Scots, and announced to them the summons of a Parliament for November 3rd. Absolutism had had its day.
