To this message no answer whatever was returned; but, on the 22d of December, the Lords voted “That the King, being now in England, may come to New Market, there to remain, with such attendants about him as both houses of Parliament shall appoint; but the Commons agreed not with the Lords therein; and therefore voted, that Holmby House, in Northamptonshire, would be a place most fit for his Majesty, if he please to come thereunto and abide with such attendants as both Houses shall appoint.” The two Houses, on the 25th of December, resumed consideration of this matter, “and the Commons further debated the King’s coming to Holmby, agreeing with the Lords that his coming thither should be with respect to the safety and preservation of his Majesty’s person, and in preservation and defence of the true religion. And the question being put, Whether the words ‘according to the Covenant’ should be added? it passed with the affirmative.” On the 5th of January, 1647, the Commons resolve to appoint Commissioners of both Houses to go down to receive the King from the Scots, and to bring him to Holmby; and the Earl of Pembroke and others were named accordingly. On the 14th, the King put several questions to the Scottish Commissioners at Newcastle, to which evasive answers were returned; and, on the 16th of that month, the Scottish Estates transmitted its consent for delivering up the King, in these terms:—“The Estates of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Scotland do declare their concurrence for the King’s Majesty’s going to Holmby House, or some other of his houses in or about London, as shall be thought fit, there to remain until he give satisfaction to both Kingdoms in the propositions of peace; and that in the interim there be no harm, prejudice, injury, nor violence done to his royal person; that there be no change of government, other than hath been these three years past; and that his posterity in no ways be prejudiced in their lawful succession to the Crown and Government of these Kingdoms.”[351]
The Commissioners from the English Parliament arrived at Newcastle on the 23d of January; and, on the 28th, “the Scotch Lords being all with his Majesty, he told them he had often desired to go into Scotland; that he came into their army for protection, and had it, but now perceived they were not willing he should go to Edinburgh. And they being to deliver up the garrisons, he desired to know how they would dispose of him; and for that end desired them to withdraw and consider to whom they would deliver him, which they did; and, coming in again, they told his Majesty that they had considered of his speech, and that, since his Majesty had refused to take the Covenant, and sign the Propositions, they were to deliver him to the Commissioners of both Houses of the Parliament of England, who were come to attend him to Holmby.”
“On Saturday, Jan. the 30th, the Scots march’d out of Newcastle, and Skippon took possession of it, and the Parliament’s Commissioners received the King into their charge, and soon after set forwards with him to Durham, and so on to Holmby, * * * where he arrived on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 1646-7.”[352]
Connected with these transactions, it should be recollected that, by the resolution of the Commons, on 1st September preceding, £100,000 were to be paid to the Scotch on the army leaving Newcastle—two other equal instalments in the payments, at three and nine months subsequently—another at nine months thereafter—and the last £100,000 after the lapse of twelve months more; so that when the King was delivered up, on the 30th of January, 1647, the Scottish authorities then received one-fourth part of the money, the remainder being made payable within a period extending over two years and a-half after the surrender of the King; a mode of settlement which it is no breach of charity to assume was fully understood to be a pledge for the acquiescence by Scotland in the decrees of the English Parliament with reference to the Royal person.
It has been said, that the resolution of the Scottish Estates, on the 16th of December, “was obtained by surprise;” and that it was an “untimely excess of zeal;”[353] and plausible special pleadings have been indited by certain historians, to gloss over the pusillanimity and sordid considerations, by which the Scottish authorities were, subsequently, induced to truckle to these arrogant pretensions. We have no sympathy either with the morbid patriotism or the party prejudices which would vindicate our countrymen of a former, or of any age, at the expense of historical truth, from such imputations as those alluded to; and whatever were the real motives by which, in this matter, the Scottish Covenanters were guided, one thing is quite plain, that they meanly yielded to the insolent demands of the English Parliament, in an affair as to which there was no stipulation in the treaties betwixt them binding them to do so; that although distinct in point of form, the negotiations about payment of the arrears, and the demands for the royal person were contemporaneous; and that, although accounts were adjusted upon paper, no part of the promised arrears was paid at the time that the demand for the King’s person was made and reiterated by the English Parliament, nor for a considerable time afterwards. And, above all, viewed in a moral light, and with reference even to the terms of the Covenant itself, and the allegiance which they had sworn to Charles as King of Scotland, and their own demands on the English Parliament, that the King should receive all honour and enjoy all freedom personally—it seems impossible to doubt that a convenient policy overruled honourable principle and national spirit, when they simultaneously delivered up the King’s person to the English Parliament, and accepted the moneys then and subsequently doled out to them, from time to time, in successive instalments.[354]
The King having been thus delivered up to the English Republicans and Independents, and the Scottish army having retired within their own territories, in the end of January, 1647, our attention is now called to the proceedings which ensued there, before referring to occurrences of a very outrageous and extraordinary character in England.
On returning into Scotland, the army, under Leven’s command, was considerably reduced, without difficulty, to such an amount as was requisite for suppressing the Royalist insurgents in various districts of the Highlands. For this purpose, Middleton and David Leslie were intrusted with the command of the Covenanting forces. The Scottish Estates adjourned, having appointed a Grand Committee to watch the progress of events; and the Royalists were, in the months of March and April, effectually repressed. Strathbogie Castle was stormed, being the chief strength of Huntly, and some other forts in his country were reduced; on one occasion twenty, and on another several more of the prisoners being executed. Many other insurgents, some of them persons of distinction, were taken prisoners, but Huntly eluded pursuit. In the Western Isles, the relics of Montrose’s band, who had been joined by a new levy of Irish auxiliaries, were also dispersed and defeated. The castles of the Macdonalds were reduced by D. Leslie. The Irish retreated from Kintyre to Islay, and thence to Ireland, with the exception of about 200, who formed a garrison, but who, being overcome, were all subjected to military execution; and thus, for a time, ended the insurrection in favour of the King in Scotland.[355]
The English Parliament was relieved by the arrangement with the Scottish Estates, already detailed, of some portion of its embarrassments; but a very formidable difficulty yet remained in regard to the disposal of its own army. It could not be upheld, at its existing strength, without proving a heavy burden on the country; and, from its character, it was dangerous to have such an army on foot and unemployed. It was, therefore, deemed prudent to select a portion of it for service in Ireland, where the authority of the English Parliament was still unacknowledged and resisted, and to disband the remainder; and, in the beginning of April, a petition was got up, with this view, from the county of Essex, praying for the speedy disbanding of the army; and the county committees which had sprung up in various quarters, excited the jealousy of the nation. On the 9th of April, the Commons resolved that, a fortnight thereafter, they should proceed to “debate the business of the Church for fourteen days together, and, in the interim, no private business to intervene;” and, on the 13th, Commissioners were appointed to go to the army, with propositions to the officers and soldiers, who were to be sent to Ireland. Symptoms of mutiny began to appear in a portion of it, stationed in North Wales, on the subject of arrears. Next day a petition from some of the reduced officers, who served under Fairfax, was read to the House, complaining of certain grievances and craving indemnity. On the 17th, a letter from the Commissioners sent to the army, of which Walden was the General’s head-quarters, was received, on the subject of enlisting for Ireland, and a conference took place with the officers who had been appointed to represent the desires of the army to Parliament. The negotiations with the army, as to going to Ireland, proceeded with but small success, and amid much distraction; and, on the 17th, there was a long debate, which was adjourned, whether to disband the army entirely or send it unbroken to Ireland for reducing that kingdom? On the 27th, it was stated that the arrangements, as to Ireland, had been obstructed by some officers in the army, and it was ordered that four of these should be summoned by the serjeant-at-arms to attend the House; and, after a long debate, it was resolved that the whole army should be disbanded, receiving six weeks’ pay. The same day, a petition was presented to the Commons by some officers for themselves and their fellow-soldiers, along with a vindication of their proceedings, which was signed by fourteen colonels and lieutenant-colonels, six majors, and an immense number of inferior officers. Nor was this movement confined to the superior officers; for the petty officers and common soldiers were completely organized, under the disguised auspices of Cromwell and Ireton, in a compact confederacy, and selected a committee, consisting of delegates from every regiment, who were distinguished by the name of “Agitators”—a term which has been appropriately revived, in more recent times, to indicate the existence of a similar spirit of insubordination and rebellion. At the period now referred to, England presented all the realities of revolutionary anarchy; and a volcanic power, the elements of which had long been fermenting underneath the English Parliament, was now on the eve of bursting forth ere it could escape that resistless power.[356] Like the Prætorian bands of Imperial Rome, the English army now assumed to itself supreme sway in the British empire, imitating the example of an unconstitutional Parliament, by which it had been called into existence, and usurping a power by which, ere long, that and all civil authority whatsoever was utterly overthrown.
On the 30th of April, the mutinous spirit of the army was conspicuously shewn by the production, in Parliament, of a letter, from some troopers in behalf of eight regiments of cavalry, wherein they expressed their reasons for not embarking in the service to Ireland, and complained of calumnies against them. Three of those who attended as delegates were called in and examined before the Commons. The House were afraid, however, to check these movements vehemently, and appointed Cromwell, Skippon, Ireton, and Fleetwood, to go to the army and pacify the discontents by lavish promises—the very men who were secretly at the bottom of the mutinous movement. Next day, four officers, who had been sent on a similar mission to London, were in attendance; but the House resolved not to call them to the bar; and Fairfax, the commander-in-chief, issued an order that all officers then in London should return to their corps within twenty-four hours. At this time, there was considerable alarm created by rumours that the army was making overtures directly to the King; and (3d May) the Provincial Assembly of London, on the Presbyterian model, assembled for the first time, in conformity with the previous ordinances by the Parliament in April preceding. The new polity was similar to that of Scotland, differing, however, in this particular, that ruling-elders, chosen by the people, were admissible to the kirk-sessions and Classes or Presbyteries, but not to Synods nor General Assemblies; and, in addition to this, the Parliament repudiated the pretensions set up to the divine right of Presbytery, the leaven of sectarian independency being sufficient to counteract and overrule in Parliament, the notions of the Presbyterians in these particulars.
Meanwhile, tidings arrived that Kolkitto (Allaster M‘Donald,) a noted Royalist partisan, was ravaging Argyle, and that David Leslie had gone in quest of him. A petition was presented by some London citizens to the Commons as “the supreme authority of Parliament,” an expression which it affected at the time to dislike, although soon afterwards that authority was assumed by it. On the 7th of May, the Parliamentary Commissioners opened their conference for quieting “distempers in the army;” but these rather increased, and the common soldiers disputed the right of their officers to compromise them without previous consultation—a circumstance sufficiently indicative of the insubordination and bad spirit that had been fostered among the troops, amounting, at the time, to above 20,000 in number. Letters from the Commissioners to the army were received on the 11th, intimating that they had prolonged the time for the officers to “treat” with the soldiers. The tremour of Parliament in these circumstances may be inferred from the resolution to add a fortnight’s pay to that of six weeks’ previously agreed to be given at disbanding the army, with six weeks’ pay additional even to that, for all who should volunteer to go to Ireland; yet all this did not allay the “distempers” among the soldiery, who, on the 15th, appointed committees out of every troop and company for the management of their joint concerns, and were thus organized into a deliberative body, in contempt of the authority of Parliament.[357]