Lord Clarendon[*] is positive, that the king, when he fled from Hampton Court, had no intention of going to this island; and indeed all the circumstances of that historian’s narrative, which we have here followed, strongly favor this opinion. But there remains a letter of Charles’s to the earl of Laneric, secretary of Scotland, in which he plainly intimates, that that measure was voluntarily embraced: and even insinuates, that if he had thought proper, he might have been in Jersey, or any other place of safety.[**] [18]
* Page 79, 80, etc.
** See note R, at the end of the volume.
Perhaps he still confided in the promises of the generals; and flattered himself, that if he were removed from the fury of the agitators, by which his life was immediately threatened, they would execute what they had so often promised in his favor.
Whatever may be the truth in this matter,—for it is impossible fully to ascertain the truth,—Charles never took a weaker step, nor one more agreeable to Cromwell and all his enemies. He was now lodged in a place removed from his partisans, at the disposal of the army, whence it would be very difficult to deliver him, either by force or artifice. And though it was always in the power of Cromwell, whenever he pleased, to have sent him thither, yet such a measure, without the king’s consent, would have been very invidious, if not attended with some danger. That the king should voluntarily throw himself into the snare, and thereby gratify his implacable persecutors, was to them an incident peculiarly fortunate, and proved in the issue very fatal to him.
Cromwell, being now entirely master of the parliament and free from all anxiety with regard to the custody of the king’s person, applied himself seriously to quell those disorders in the army, which he himself had so artfully raised, and so successfully employed, against both king and parliament. In order to engage the troops into a rebellion against their masters, he had encouraged an arrogant spirit among the inferior officers and private men; and the camp, in many respects, carried more the appearance of civil liberty than of military obedience. The troops themselves were formed into a kind of republic; and the plans of imaginary republics, for the settlement of the state, were every day the topics of conversation among these armed legislators. Royalty it was agreed to abolish: nobility must be set aside: even all ranks of men be levelled; and a universal equality of property, as well as of power, be introduced among the citizens. The saints, they said, were the salt of the earth: an entire parity had place among the elect; and by the same rule that the apostles were exalted from the most ignoble professions, the meanest sentinel, if enlightened by the Spirit, was entitled to equal regard with the greatest commander. In order to wean the soldiers from these, licentious maxims, Cromwell had issued orders for discontinuing the meetings of the agitators; and he pretended to pay entire obedience to the parliament, whom being now fully reduced to subjection, he purposed to make for the future, the instruments of his authority. But the “levellers,”—for so that party in the army was called,—having experienced the sweets of dominion, would not so easily be deprived of it. They secretly continued their meetings: they asserted, that their officers, as much as any part of the church or state, needed reformation: several regiments joined in seditious remonstrances and petitions:[*] separate rendezvouses were concerted; and every thing tended to anarchy and confusion. But this distemper was soon cured by the rough but dexterous hand of Cromwell. He chose the opportunity of a review, that he might display the greater boldness, and spread the terror the wider. He seized the ringleaders before their companions; held in the field a council of war; shot one mutineer instantly; and struck such dread into the rest, that they presently threw down the symbols of sedition, which they had displayed, and thenceforth returned to their wonted discipline and obedience.[**]
Cromwell had great deference for the counsels of Ireton, a man who, having grafted the soldier on the lawyer the statesman on the saint, had adopted such principles as were fitted to introduce the severest tyranny, while they seemed to encourage the most unbounded license in human society. Fierce in his nature, though probably sincere in his intentions, he purposed by arbitrary power to establish liberty, and, in prosecution of his imagined religious purposes, he thought himself dispensed from all the ordinary rules of morality, by which inferior mortals must allow themselves to be governed. From his suggestion, Cromwell secretly called at Windsor a council of the chief officers, in order to deliberate concerning the settlement of the nation, and the future disposal of the king’s person.[***]
* Rush. vol. viii. p. 845, 859.
** Rush. vol. viii. p. 875. Clarendon, vol. v. p. 87.
*** Clarendon, vol. v. p. 92.
In this conference, which commenced with devout prayers, poured forth by Cromwell himself and other inspired persons, (for the officers of this army received inspiration with their commission,) was first opened the daring and unheard-of counsel, of bringing the king to justice, and of punishing, by a judicial sentence, their sovereign, for his pretended tyranny and maleadministration. While Charles lived, even though restrained to the closest prison, conspiracies, they knew, and insurrections would never be wanting in favor of a prince who was so extremely revered and beloved by his own party, and whom the nation in general began to regard with great affection and compassion. To murder him privately was exposed to the imputation of injustice and cruelty, aggravated by the baseness of such a crime; and every odious epithet of “traitor” and “assassin” would, by the general voice of mankind, be indisputably ascribed to the actors in such a villany. Some unexpected procedure must be attempted, which would astonish the world by its novelty, would bear the semblance of justice, and would cover its barbarity by the audaciousness of the enterprise. Striking in with the fanatical notions of the entire equality of mankind, it would insure the devoted obedience of the army, and serve as a general engagement against the royal family, whom, by their open and united deed, they would so heinously affront and injure.[*]
This measure, therefore, being secretly resolved on, it was requisite, by degrees, to make the parliament adopt it, and to conduct them from violence to violence, till this last act of atrocious iniquity should seem in a manner wholly inevitable. The king, in order to remove those fears and jealousies, which were perpetually pleaded as reasons for every invasion of the constitution, had offered, by a message sent from Carisbroke Castle, to resign, during his own life, the power of the militia and the nomination to all the great offices; provided that, after his demise, these prerogatives should revert to the crown.[**] But the parliament acted entirely as victors and enemies; and, in all their transactions with him, paid no longer any regard to equity or reason. At the instigation of the Independents and army, they neglected this offer, and framed four proposals, which they sent him as preliminaries; and before they would deign to treat, they demanded his positive assent to all of them.
* The following was a favorite text among the enthusiasts of
that age: “Let the high praises of God be in the mouths of
his saints, and a twofold sword in their hands, to execute
vengeance upon the heathen and punishment upon the people;
to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with
fetters of iron; to execute upon them the judgments written:
This honor have all his saints.” Psalm cxlix, ver. 6, 7, 8,
9. Hugh Peters, the mad chaplain of Cromwell, preached
frequently upon this text.
** Rush. vol. viii. p 880.