This measure being foreseen some time before, the king was exhorted to make his escape, which was conceived to be very easy: but having given his word to the parliament not to attempt the recovery of his liberty during the treaty, and three weeks after, he would not, by any persuasion, be induced to hazard the reproach of violating that promise. In vain was it urged, that a promise given to the parliament could no longer be binding; since they could no longer afford him protection from violence threatened him by other persons, to whom he was bound by no tie or engagement. The king would indulge no refinements of casuistry, however plausible, in such delicate subjects; and was resolved that, what depredations soever fortune should commit upon him, she never should bereave him of his honor.[*]
* Colonel Cooke’s Memoirs, p. 174. Rush. vol. viii. p. 1347.
The parliament lost not courage, notwithstanding the danger with which they were so nearly menaced. Though without any plan for resisting military usurpations, they resolved to withstand them to the uttermost; and rather to bring on a violent and visible subversion of government, than lend their authority to those illegal and sanguinary measures which were projected. They set aside the remonstrance of the army, without deigning to answer it; they voted the seizing of the king’s person to be without their consent, and sent a message to the general, to know by what authority that enterprise had been executed; and they issued orders that the army should advance no nearer to London.
Hollis, the present leader of the Presbyterians, was a man of unconquerable intrepidity; and many others of that party seconded his magnanimous spirit. It was proposed by them, that the generals and principal officers should, for their disobedience and usurpations, be proclaimed traitors by the parliament.
But the parliament was dealing with men who would not be frightened by words, nor retarded by any scrupulous delicacy. The generals, under the name of Fairfax, (for he still allowed them to employ his name,) marched the army to London, and placing guards in Whitehall, the Mews, St. James’s, Durham House, Covent Garden, and Palace Yard, surrounded the parliament with their hostile armaments.
The parliament, destitute of all hopes of prevailing, retained, however, courage to resist. They attempted, in the face of the army, to close their treaty with the king; and, though they had formerly voted his concessions with regard to the church and delinquents to be unsatisfactory, they now took into consideration the final resolution with regard to the whole.
After a violent debate of three days, it was carried, by a majority of one hundred and twenty-nine against eighty-three, in the house of commons, that the king’s concessions were a foundation for the houses to proceed upon in the settlement of the kingdom.
Next day, when the commons were to meet, Colonel Pride formerly a drayman, had environed the house with two regiments; and, directed by Lord Grey of Groby, he seized in the passage forty-one members of the Presbyterian party, and sent them to a low room, which passed by the appellation of “hell;” whence they were afterwards carried to several inns. Above one hundred and sixty members more were excluded, and none were allowed to enter but the most furious and the most determined of the Independents; and these exceeded not the number of fifty or sixty. This invasion of the parliament commonly passed under the name of “Colonel Pride’s Purge;” so much disposed was the nation to make merry with the dethroning of those members who had violently arrogated the whole authority of government, and deprived the king of his legal prerogatives.
The subsequent proceedings of the parliament, if this diminutive assembly deserve that honorable name, retain not the least appearance of law, equity, or freedom. They instantly reversed the former vote, and declared the king’s concessions unsatisfactory. They determined that no member absent at this last vote should be received till he subscribed it, as agree able to his judgment. They renewed their former vote of non-addresses. And they committed to prison Sir William Waller, Sir John Clotworthy, the generals Massey, Brown, Copley, and other leaders of the Presbyterians. These men, by their credit and authority, which was then very high, had, at the commencement of the war, supported the parliament; and thereby prepared the way for the greatness of the present leaders, who at that time were of small account in the nation.