The Independents offer terms to Charles.
Next the army marched on London, and encamped before its gates (June 16, 1647). Many Presbyterian members fled in dismay from the House of Commons, and the Independents got for a moment a majority in Parliament. The victorious party then proceeded to treat with the king, offering him liberal terms—the complete toleration of all sects, the restriction of the royal power over the armed force of the realm for ten years only, and a pardon for all exiled Royalists except five.
Charles's intrigues.
In a moment of evil inspiration the king refused this moderate offer. Encouraged by the quarrel of the Presbyterians and the army, he had formed a secret plot for freeing himself from both. His old partisans all over England had agreed on a simultaneous rising, and they had obtained a promise of aid from the Scots; for those stern Presbyterians so hated the Independents and the English army, that they were prepared to join the king against them. On the 11th of November, 1647, Charles slipped away from his military captors, and succeeded in escaping to the Isle of Wight. Hammond, the governor of the island, kept him in security at Carisbrooke, but did not send him back to the army. From Carisbrooke, the king sent new offers of terms of accommodation both to the army and the Parliament, but he was merely trying to gain time for his friends to take arms.
Renewal of the war.
On the 28th of April, 1648, he saw his plot begin to work. A body of north-country Royalists seized Berwick, and raised the royal standard. A few days later the Scots took arms and raised a large force, which was placed under the Duke of Hamilton, and ordered to cross the Border. At the same time a committee of Scots lords sent to France for the young Prince of Wales, and invited him to come among them and put himself at the head of his father's friends. The movement in Scotland was a signal for the general rising of the English Royalists. Insurrections broke out in May and June all over the land—in Wales, Kent, Essex, Cornwall, and even among the Eastern Counties of the "Association," where Puritanism was so strong.
English Royalists suppressed.
For a moment it looked as if the king would win. It seemed that the army would be unable to cope with so many simultaneous risings. But Charles had not calculated on the military skill which Fairfax and Cromwell could display in the hour of danger. In less than three months' hard fighting the two generals had put down the whole insurrection. Fairfax routed the Kentishmen—the most dangerous body of insurgents in the South—by storming their stronghold of Maidstone. Then, crossing the Thames, he pacified the Eastern Counties, and drove all the insurgents of those parts into Colchester. In Colchester he met a vigorous resistance; the town held out for two months, and only yielded to starvation (August 27, 1648).
Battle of Preston.—The Scottish army dispersed.
Meanwhile Cromwell had first struck down the Welsh Royalists, and then ridden north to oppose the Scots. The Duke of Hamilton had already crossed the Tweed, and had been joined by 4000 or 5000 Yorkshiremen. He moved southward, intending to reach Wales, but in Lancashire Cromwell caught him on the march, with his army spread out over many miles of road. Falling on the scattered host, Cromwell beat its rear at Preston (August 17); then, pressing on, he scattered or captured the whole army in three days of fierce fighting, though his force was far inferior in numbers to that of the enemy. But the imbecile Hamilton had so dispersed his men that he never could concentrate them for a battle. On August 25 the duke, with the last wrecks of his army, surrendered at Uttoxeter.