Cromwell protected them against Manchester’s Presbyterian chaplains and against the hostility of Presbyterian officers. In March, 1644, when Major-General Crawford cashiered the lieutenant-colonel of his regiment on the ground that he was an Anabaptist, Cromwell at once remonstrated. If any military offence were chargeable upon the lieutenant-colonel, he must be tried by court-martial; if none, Crawford must restore him to his command. “Admit he be an Anabaptist, shall that render him incapable to serve the public? Sir, the State in choosing men to serve it, takes no notice of their opinions; if they be willing to serve it faithfully, that suffices.” Six months later, after a second quarrel with Crawford on the same subject, Cromwell procured from Parliament what was known as “the Accommodation Order.” A committee was to be appointed
“to take into consideration the differences in opinion of the members of the Assembly of Divines in point of Church government, and to endeavour a union if it be possible; and in case that cannot be done, to endeavour the finding out some way, how far tender consciences, who cannot in all things submit to the common rule which shall be established, may be borne with according to the Word, and as may stand with the public peace” (September 13, 1644).
After every victory of the “New Model,” Cromwell reminded Parliament of the necessity of legally establishing the toleration which this vote promised. “Honest men served you faithfully in this action,” he wrote from the field of Naseby; “they are trusty; I beseech you in the name of God not to discourage them. He that ventures his life for the liberty of his country, I wish he trust God for the liberty of his conscience, and you for the liberty he fights for.” So little did the Commons share his feeling, that they mutilated his letter by omitting in the published copies his plea for toleration, but he repeated it in still plainer language after the storming of Bristol.
“Presbyterians and Independents, all here have the same spirit of faith and prayer ... they agree here, have no names of difference; pity it should be otherwise anywhere. All that believe have the real unity which is most glorious because inward and spiritual.... For being united in forms, commonly called Uniformity, every Christian will for peace sake study and do as far as conscience will permit. And from brethren in things of the mind we look for no compulsion, but that of light and reason.”
Parliament had answered by mutilating this letter as it had mutilated the other. What prospect was there, now that the swords of the Independents were no longer needed, that their political and religious demands would be listened to, or that no compulsion save that of light and reason would be exercised against their consciences? As to religion, if Parliament allowed the Presbyterian clergy to work their will, Independents could expect nothing but persecution. “To let men serve God according to the persuasion of their own consciences,” wrote one Presbyterian divine, “was to cast out one devil that seven worse might enter.” Toleration, wrote another, was “the Devil’s Masterpiece.” “If the devil had his choice whether the hierarchy, ceremonies, and liturgy should be established in the kingdom, or a toleration granted, he would choose a toleration.” “We detest and abhor the much endeavoured toleration,” declared a meeting of the London ministers. The corporation of London backed their declaration by a petition for the suppression of all heresies. In Parliament itself it was evident that the anti-tolerationists had gained the upper hand. As late as April, 1646, the Commons had promised a due regard for tender consciences, providing only that they differed not in any fundamentals of religion. In September, however, the House passed the second reading of a bill which punished with death those who denied doctrines relating to the Trinity and the Incarnation, and with imprisonment for life those who opposed Infant Baptism and other less important doctrines. In December, when a bill was introduced prohibiting laymen from preaching in churches or elsewhere, Cromwell could only muster fifty-seven members in favour of allowing them at least to expound the Scriptures. Nor was there in the proposals of Parliament for the settlement of the kingdom any sign that the constitutional settlement would include in it toleration for Independency.
As little hope was there from the King. Ever since May, 1646, Charles had been a prisoner in the camp of the Scots, first at Newark, and then at Newcastle. The chief demands contained in the propositions sent to him at Newcastle were, that the King should enforce the taking of the Covenant through all the three kingdoms, and accept the Presbyterian Church which Parliament had set up. At the same time he was to give Parliament the control of the naval and military forces of the nation for the next twenty years, and when that period ended the two Houses were to decide as to their future disposal. Backed by the Church, and with the sword as well as the purse in their hands, the power of Parliament would be securely established.
As long as he could, Charles evaded a direct answer. He believed that bishops and apostolical succession were necessary to a true Church. If he gave way to the abolition of Episcopacy “there would be no Church,” and to yield against the dictates of his conscience would be “a sin of the highest nature.” Political motives reinforced conscientious objections. To accept or impose the Covenant would be a “perpetual authorising rebellion.” As to establishing Presbyterianism by law,
“under pretence of a thorough reformation in England they intend to take away all the ecclesiastical power of government from the Crown, and place it in the two Houses of Parliament. Moreover they will introduce the doctrine which teaches rebellion to be lawful and that the supreme power is in the people, to whom kings, as they say, ought to give account, and to be corrected when they do amiss.... There was not a wiser man since Solomon than he who said ‘no bishop, no king.’”
The utmost that Charles, after months of negotiation, would concede was to grant the establishment of Presbyterianism for three years, and the control of the army and navy for ten. At the end of the ten years he stipulated that the control of army and navy should return to the Crown, and at the end of the three he was firmly resolved to re-establish Episcopacy.
After eight months of futile negotiating, the Scots, disgusted by the King’s obstinate refusal to accept Presbyterianism, resolved to abandon the King’s cause and hand him over to his English subjects. They settled their own differences with the English Parliament about their arrears of pay, received two hundred thousand pounds on account, and evacuated Newcastle on January 30, 1647, leaving Charles in charge of the parliamentary commissioners. In February he was brought to Holmby House in Northamptonshire in custody of the commissioners and of a guard of cavalry.