Abandoned by Parliament, the general was ardently sought after by the Royalists, who were incapable of believing that a man of his rank could earnestly serve any other cause than theirs. The king wrote him on the 6th of August, at his headquarters at Lestwithiel, a letter full of esteem and promises, urging him to restore peace to his country. It was Lord Beauchamp, nephew of the earl, who brought the royal missive. "I have but one counsel to give to the king, that is to return to his Parliament." Charles did not persist, but many cavaliers around him desired peace, and were beginning to shake off the exclusive yoke of the royal will. They resolved to offer to the earl their personal guarantee for the promises of the king. A rough draft of a letter, signed by Lords Wilmot and Percy, commanders of the cavalry and infantry, circulated among the officers. The king concealed his ill-humor. His nephew. Prince Maurice, like the Earl of Brentford, commander-in-chief of the royal army, signed the proposals of negotiation addressed to the hostile general. The king had authorized the proceeding. "My Lords," replied Essex, "you have been careful to express, in the first lines of your letter, in virtue of what authorization it has been addressed to me. I have received from Parliament which I serve no authority to negotiate, and I could not lend myself to it without a breach of trust. I am, my Lords, your very humble servant, Essex."
It remained but to fight with the redoubled ardor which arises from vexation. The Parliamentary general was hemmed in on all sides by the royalist forces. Skirmishes took place every day, without great result. Provisions were becoming scarce in the army of Parliament. The Royalists had come so near that they could see all that went on in the camp. Essex resolved to endeavor to reach the port of Fowey. The cavalry, under orders of Sir William Balfour, spent the night between the two divisions of the royal army; but the infantry became involved in narrow roads, where they advanced slowly; they were pursued by all the army of the king: they had lost their baggage; they spoke aloud of capitulating. Essex could not submit to so great a disgrace; he reached the coast with two officers, threw himself into a boat and made sail for Plymouth, leaving his army under the orders of Major-General Skippon. The soldiers were discouraged, the officers discontented: the king caused unexpected terms to be proposed to them; the capitulation was accepted. The artillery, provisions, and arms remained in the hands of the Royalists. The men were reconducted to the quarters of the Parliamentarians. They had saved their lives and liberty, but without arms and without a leader they traversed, under the escort of the cavaliers, the counties which they had but recently overrun as conquerors. Their general had fled from this humiliation; he did not endeavor to escape the justice of his country; he wrote to Parliament, on arriving at Plymouth, "It is the most severe blow which our cause has ever sustained. I desire nothing so much as to be put upon my trial; such disasters should not be suppressed."
The English Parliament was worthy to have descended from the old Roman Senators contending against Hannibal. Instead of placing Essex upon trial, the formation of a new army for his use was immediately set about. The imminence of the peril rallied to his party those men who were uncertain, and the leaders of the Independents, able and patient, were in no hurry to throw light upon the causes which had brought about the defeat of the earl. Manchester and Waller received orders to join the army of Essex. When the king, confident from his successes in Cornwall, and glad to learn that at the instigation of Montrose, war had broken out in Scotland, commenced his movements towards London, he encountered by the way imposing forces. The army of Essex was there, but its general was wanting. The earl, disheartened and ill, had remained in London. The assurances of the confidence of Parliament had not sufficed to rouse him from his dejection: battle was given in his absence on the 29th of October, once more before Newbury.
The action was long and desperate. The soldiers of Essex performed on this occasion prodigies of valor to retake the cannon which they had lost in Cornwall; but they remained uncertain, and both sides claimed the victory. The king abandoned his designs upon London, and withdrew towards Oxford, where he counted upon taking up his winter quarters. Cromwell reproached the Earl of Manchester with having attacked without vigor, and with having but feebly followed up his advantages. The struggle became more resolute every day between the Presbyterians and the Independents—between the partisans of peace and those who desired war at any price. Of these latter, Cromwell was becoming the acknowledged leader.
Essex and his friends resolved to attempt a great effort. They urged the committee of the House which, for six months, had worked with the Scotch commissioners, to prepare the proposals for peace. In a few days these proposals were presented to the Houses, discussed and adopted. On the 20th of November, nine commissioners set out to present them to the king. They found him at Oxford, and on the first day the insults of the cavaliers towards the Parliamentarians threatened to bring about personal encounters between the emissaries of the Parliament and the partisans of the king. "Have you power to negotiate?" asked Charles of Lord Denbigh. "No, Sire, our mission is limited to presenting to your Majesty the proposals, and to soliciting your answer in writing." "Well; I will remit it to you (he replied) as soon as I am able." The commissioners waited for three days. The proposals of Parliament were not conciliatory; they involved a veritable abdication of the royal power. When the commissioners from Parliament were at length summoned before the king, he consigned a sealed document to them, saying, "This is my answer; take it to those who have sent you." Lord Denbigh in vain endeavored to ascertain what the document contained; the king would not give to the Houses the name of Parliament. "Your duty is to take my answer, were it only the ballad of Robin Hood." "The matter which has brought us, Sire, is a trifle more serious than a ballad." "I know it; but you told me that you had no power to negotiate. My memory is as good as yours; you were only charged to remit the proposals to me. A post-boy would have done as much in the matter as you." The conversation became more and more bitter. The commissioners set out on their return, without obtaining from the king an admission that his message was addressed to Parliament. He only asked for a safe-conduct for the Duke of Richmond and the Earl of Southampton. They proceeded to London, and conferences were resolved upon; these were to take place at Uxbridge. Forty commissioners, twenty-three in the name of Parliament, and seventeen in the name of the king, were to discuss that peace which was every day becoming more the object of all the desires as well as the only hope of the Presbyterians.
The Independents knew this well, but they also knew the passionate pride and the deceptions of the king, and the fanaticism and haughtiness of the Parliamentarians. While dreading the pacific conferences which might have caused the triumph of their rivals, they occupied themselves in preparing for war. Cromwell made a great speech condemning the division of power and the slowness of the military operations. "If the army be not put into another method, and the war more vigorously prosecuted, the people can bear the war no longer, and will enforce you to a dishonorable peace. Let us waive a strict inquiry into the causes of these things; let us apply ourselves to the remedy which is most necessary. And I hope we have such true English hearts and zealous affections towards the general weal of our mother-country, as no members of either House will scruple to deny themselves and their own private interest for the public good, nor account it to be a dishonor done to them whatever Parliament shall resolve upon." "There is but one way to end the matter," said Zouch Tate, an obscure fanatic, "each of us must freely sacrifice himself. I propose that no member of either House shall, during the war, enjoy or execute any office or command, civil or military, and that an ordinance be brought in accordingly."
After the first moment of astonishment, a violent discussion arose. It was in the Houses that lay all the strength of the Presbyterians, until then the real leaders of the revolution. The "self-denying" ordinance deprived them of the executive power and created an army of strangers to Parliament. They did not deceive themselves as to the pretended disinterestedness which had inspired the proposals of Cromwell and his friends. "There is some talk here of self-denial," they said; "it will be the triumph of personal envy and interest." But this time public opinion was with the Independents. The Presbyterian party was worn-out and discredited. Notwithstanding their real strength in the House of Commons, the ordinance was voted and sent up to the House of Lords on the 21st of September.
In voting the proposal of Zouch Tate, the Upper House abandoned the remnant of power which it still retained, for nearly all its members were affected. While they deliberated, the political leaders of the party in the House of Commons increased the concessions to the religious prejudices, as well as to the malignant resentments of the multitude. Long-forgotten prosecutions were resumed. Archbishop Laud, imprisoned for four years, was condemned by a simple ordinance of the two Houses, illegal even according to the traditions of Parliamentary tyranny. He died with pious courage, filled with scorn for his adversaries and with uneasiness for the future of the king. Sir John Hotham and his son, accused of having plotted to deliver to the king the town of Hull; Lord Macguire, who had fomented the Irish insurrection, and Sir Alexander Carew, governor of the island of St. Nicholas, who had relaxed his zeal in favor of the royalist conspiracies, expiated their transgressions by capital punishment. At the same time, the litany of the Church of England, hitherto tacitly tolerated, was definitively abolished. A book entitled Directions for Public Worship received instead the sanction of Parliament, which no longer refused anything to the fanatics whose support it claimed. The House of Lords did not deceive their hopes. On the 15th of January, 1645, it rejected the self-denying ordinance.