Charles suddenly announced an intention of setting out for Scotland, where his presence had, he said, become necessary for the execution of the treaty of peace. At the same time the queen prepared to make a journey to the Continent. The House took alarm; they dreaded the passing of the king through the army, which was being disbanded and was known to be disaffected; they feared the secret manœuvres of the queen among the absolute sovereigns. They asked Charles to delay his departure; they implored the queen to remain in England: both consented. The disbanding of the army was in vain hurried on by promising the soldiers the arrears of their pay. Money was borrowed, plate was melted down to meet this enormous expenditure. The operation was not completed when the king at length departed on the 10th of August. The House adjourned on the 27th. A committee, at the head of which was Hampden, was sent to Scotland to remain with the king, in order to watch over the interests of Parliament.
This measure was prudent and effective. Charles passed through the English and Scottish armies without daring to stay long; but his attempts to influence the officers meanwhile engaged the attention of Lord Holland, who was entrusted with the disbandment. He wrote on this matter with uneasiness to the Earl of Essex in London. On arriving in Edinburgh the king accorded to the Parliament and Church of Scotland all the religious and political concessions which they demanded. He attended the Presbyterian worship with a pious gravity which touched the Scots. He appeared to have regained in favor and confidence that ancient kingdom of his fathers, which had formerly risen in its entirety against the tyranny which attempted to interfere with its faith. The chiefs of the Covenanters themselves were received with eager good grace. Distrustful people in Scotland, anxious lookers-on in England, in vain endeavored to penetrate the mystery of this conduct.
Suddenly it became known that the two most influential of the great lords in the Scottish Parliament, Hamilton and Argyll, had left Edinburgh with their friends, and retired into the country to escape the danger of arrest. The king loudly complained of the conjectures which were in circulation; Parliament ordered an inquiry. The proceedings were in secret; the committee declared, without any particulars, that there was no claim on the side of the king for any reparation nor ground for any alarm on the part of the fugitives. The latter resumed their seats in Parliament, and the public knew nothing of what had happened.
Nothing was known, but the object of the journey of Charles to Scotland had failed. He had thought of collecting upon the spot such proofs of the correspondence of the English malcontents with the Covenanter chiefs of Scotland that the judges could not help declaring guilty of high treason those leaders of the Commons who had caused, by their intrigues, the invasion of their country. He intended to hurl against them the accusation which Strafford had not had time to prepare. The hopes of the king were sustained by his correspondence with a young and impetuous nobleman, the Earl of Montrose, formerly attached to the Covenant, but who had now given himself up body and soul to the royal cause. In Scotland the king had found Montrose in prison, suspected by Argyll; but the prison bolts were drawn now and then. Montrose had come by night to see Charles; he had inspired him with some uneasiness concerning Hamilton and Argyll, asserting that their papers would furnish the proofs which the king sought. The arrest of the two noblemen was agreed upon, when the latter frustrated the scheme by publicly quitting Parliament and the city. Far from ridding himself of them, Charles was compelled to load his enemies with favors: Hamilton was made a duke, Argyll a marquis, Lesley, the general of the Scottish troops, became Earl of Leven. But these indications did not deceive Hampden; he knew all, and informed his London friends of the fact. The period of adjournment of the Houses was drawing to an end.
Great was the terror among the Parliamentary leaders when the proof was forthcoming of the vindictive rancor of the king. They consulted with uneasiness upon the conduct to be observed. The Scottish Parliament had wisely suppressed the affair. The English Parliament could not make use of it to agitate the people. Ireland undertook this task.
On the 1st of November, 1641, it was suddenly learned that an immense insurrection had broken out in Ireland, threatening the most imminent danger to the Protestant religion and the Protestants of the country. The Catholics had everywhere risen, chiefs and people, claiming the liberty of their faith, vaunting the name of the queen and even of the king, setting up a commission signed, it was said, by the latter, and announcing the design of delivering Ireland and the throne from the tyranny of the English Puritans. On the very eve of the day on which the conspiracy was to break out it was accidentally discovered and quelled in Dublin. Throughout the country it had met with no obstacle. Murders, fires, horrible and nameless crimes, it is said, were rife throughout Ireland. Everywhere Protestants were massacred without resistance. The Government, disarmed by Strafford and the crown, was powerless before a half-savage people eager to avenge in one day centuries of outrage and misfortune. The Earl of Leicester, nominated viceroy in place of Strafford, had not yet arrived. To oppose so terrible a storm the English Government had in Ireland only two judges of no ability, of no credit, whose Presbyterian zeal alone had caused them to be invested with that difficult employment.
England uttered a prolonged cry of terror and rage; every Protestant considered himself attacked in common with his brothers of Ireland. The king, who was a stranger to the insurrection, hastened to communicate to Parliament the news which had reached him in Scotland, placing the affair in the hands of the Commons and entrusting them with the repression, partly to rid himself of all complicity, partly to avoid in the eyes of his Catholic subjects, whom he had not encouraged, but whom he was in no hurry to restrain, the responsibility for the severities to which they might be compelled to submit.