The truth is, after the commencement of war, it was very difficult, if not impossible, to find security for both parties, especially for that of the parliament. Amidst such violent animosities, power alone could insure safety; and the power of one side was necessarily attended with danger to the other. Few or no instances occur in history of an equal, peaceful, and durable accommodation that has been concluded between two factions which had been inflamed into civil war.
With regard to Ireland, there were no greater hopes of agreement between the parties. The parliament demanded, that the truce with the rebels should be declared null; that the management of the war should be given over entirely to the parliament; and that, after the conquest of Ireland, the nomination of the lord lieutenant and of the judges, or in other words the sovereignty of that kingdom, should likewise remain in their hands.[v]
* Dugdale, p. 798.
** Dugdale, p. 791.
*** Dugdale, p. 820.
**** Dugdale, p. 877.
v Dugdale, p. 826, 827
What rendered an accommodation more desperate was, that the demands on these three heads, however exorbitant, were acknowledged, by the parliamentary commissioners, to be nothing but preliminaries. After all these were granted, it would be necessary to proceed to the discussion of those other demands, still more exorbitant, which a little before had been transmitted to the king at Oxford. Such ignominious terms were there insisted on, that worse could scarcely be demanded, were Charles totally vanquished, a prisoner, and in chains. The king was required to attaint and except from a general pardon forty of the most considerable of his English subjects, and nineteen of his Scottish, together with all Popish recusants in both kingdoms who had borne arms for him. It was insisted that forty-eight more, with all the members who had sitten in either house at Oxford, all lawyers and divines who had embraced the king’s party, should be rendered incapable of any office, be forbidden the exercise of their profession, be prohibited from coming within the verge of the court, and forfeit the third of their estates to the parliament. It was required that whoever had borne arms for the king, should forfeit the tenth of their estates; or, if that did not suffice, the sixth, for the payment of public debts. As if royal authority were not sufficiently annihilated by such terms, it was demanded that the court of wards should be abolished; that all the considerable officers of the crown, and all the judges, should be appointed by parliament; and that the right of peace and war should not be exercised without the consent of that assembly.[*]
* Rush. vol. vi. p. 850. Dugdale, p. 737.
The Presbyterians, it must be confessed, after insisting on such conditions, differed only in words from the Independents, who required the establishment of a pure republic. When the debates had been carried on to no purpose during twenty days among the commissioners, they separated, and returned; those of the king to Oxford, those of the parliament to London.
A little before the commencement of this fruitless treaty, a deed was executed by the parliament, which proved their determined resolution to yield nothing, but to proceed in the same violent and imperious manner with which they had at first entered on these dangerous enterprises. Archbishop Laud, the most favored minister of the king, was brought to the scaffold; and in this instance the public might see, that popular assemblies, as, by their very number, they are in a great measure exempt from the restraint of shame, so when they also overleap the bounds of law, naturally break out into acts of the greatest tyranny and injustice.
From the time that Laud had been committed, the house of commons, engaged in enterprises of greater moment, had found no leisure to finish his impeachment, and he had patiently endured so long an imprisonment, without being brought to any trial. After the union with Scotland, the bigoted prejudices of that nation revived the like spirit in England; and the sectaries resolved to gratify their vengeance in the punishment of this prelate, who had so long, by his authority, and by the execution of penal laws, kept their zealous spirit under confinement. He was accused of high treason, in endeavoring to subvert the fundamental laws, and of other high crimes and misdemeanors. The same illegality of an accumulative crime and a constructive evidence which appeared in the case of Strafford, the same violence and iniquity in conducting the trial, are conspicuous throughout the whole course of this prosecution. The groundless charge of Popery, though belied by his whole life and conduct, was continually urged against the prisoner; and every error rendered unpardonable by this imputation, which was supposed to imply the height of all enormities. “This man, my lords,” said Serjeant Wilde, concluding his long speech against him, “is like Naaman the Syrian; a great man, but a leper.”[*]
We shall not enter into a detail of this matter, which at present seems to admit of little controversy. It suffices to say, that after a long trial, and the examination of above a hundred and fifty witnesses, the commons found so little likelihood of obtaining a judicial sentence against Laud, that they were obliged to have recourse to their legislative authority, and to pass an ordinance for taking away the life of this aged prelate. Notwithstanding the low condition into which the house of peers was fallen, there appeared some intention of rejecting this ordinance; and the popular leaders were again obliged to apply to the multitude, and to extinguish, by threats of new tumults, the small remains of liberty possessed by the upper house. Seven peers alone voted in this important question. The rest, either from shame or fear, took care to absent themselves.[*]
* Rush. vol. vi. p. 830.
** Warwick, p. 169.