It may be worthy of remark, that several mutinies had arisen among the English troops when marching to join the army; and some officers had been murdered merely on suspicion of their being Papists.[***] The petition of right had abolished all martial law; and by an inconvenience which naturally attended the plan, as yet new and unformed, of regular and rigid liberty, it was found absolutely impossible for the generals to govern the army by all the authority which the king could legally confer upon them. The lawyers had declared, that martial law could not be exercised, except in the very presence of an enemy; and because it had been found necessary to execute a mutineer, the generals thought it advisable, for their own safety, to apply for a pardon from the crown. This weakness, however, was carefully concealed from the army, and Lord Conway said, that if any lawyer were so imprudent as to discover the secret to the soldiers, it would be necessary instantly to refute it, and to hang the lawyer himself by sentence of a court martial.[****]
* Nalson, vol. ii. p. 5.
** Clarendon, vol. i. p. 159.
*** Rush. vol. iii. 1190, 1191, 1192, etc. May, p. 64.
**** Rush. vol. iii. p 1199.
An army new levied, undisciplined, frightened, seditious, ill paid, and governed by no proper authority, was very unfit for withstanding a victorious and high-spirited enemy, and retaining in subjection a discontented and zealous nation.
Charles, in despair of being able to stem the torrent, at last determined to yield to it: and as he foresaw that the great council of the peers would advise him to call a parliament, he told them, in his first speech, that he had already taken this resolution. He informed them likewise, that the queen, in a letter which she had written to him, had very earnestly recommended that measure. This good prince, who was extremely attached to his consort, and who passionately wished to render her popular in the nation, forgot not, amidst all his distress, the interests of his domestic tenderness.[*]
In order to subsist both armies, (for the king was obliged, in order to save the northern counties, to pay his enemies,) Charles wrote to the city, desiring a loan of two hundred thousand pounds. And the peers at York, whose authority was now much greater than that of their sovereign, joined in the same request:[**] so low was this prince already fallen in the eyes of his own subjects.
As many difficulties occurred in the negotiation with the Scots, it was proposed to transfer the treaty from Rippon to London; a proposal willingly embraced by that nation, who were now sure of treating with advantage in a place where the king, they foresaw, would be in a manner a prisoner, in the midst of his implacable enemies, and their determined friends.[***]
* Clarendon, vol. 1. p. 154. Bush. vol. iii. p. 1275.
** Rush. vol. iii. p 1279.
*** Rush, vol. iii. p 1805.