[362] See Parl. Hist. 823, 892, 904, 921, 924, 959, 996, for the different votes on this subject, wherein the presbyterians gradually beat the independent or republican party, but with very small and precarious majorities.
[363] Clarendon, vi. 155. He is very absurd in imagining that any of the parliamentary commissioners would have been satisfied with "an act of indemnity and oblivion."
That the parliament had some reason to expect the king's firmness of purpose to give way, in spite of all his haggling, will appear from the following short review of what had been done. 1. At Newmarket, in June 1642, he absolutely refused the nineteen propositions tendered to him by the Lords and Commons. 2. In the treaty of Oxford, March 1643, he seems to have made no concession, not even promising an amnesty to those he had already excluded from pardon. 3. In the treaty of Uxbridge, no mention was made on his side of exclusion from pardon; he offered to vest the militia for seven years in commissioners jointly appointed by himself and parliament, so that it should afterwards return to him, and to limit the jurisdiction of the bishops. 4. In the winter of 1645, he not only offered to disband his forces, but to let the militia be vested for seven years in commissioners to be appointed by the two houses, and afterwards to be settled by bill; also to give the nomination of officers of state and judges pro hâc vice to the houses. 5. He went no farther in substance till May 1647; when he offered the militia for ten years, as well as great limitations of episcopacy, and the continuance of presbyterian government for three years; the whole matter to be afterwards settled by bill on the advice of the assembly of divines, and twenty more of his own nomination. 6. In his letter from Carisbrook, Nov. 1647, he gave up the militia for his life. This was in effect to sacrifice almost everything as to immediate power; but he struggled to save the church lands from confiscation, which would have rendered it hardly practicable to restore episcopacy in future. His further concessions in the treaty of Newport, though very slowly extorted, were comparatively trifling.
What Clarendon thought of the treaty of Newport may be imagined. "You may easily conclude," he writes to Digby, "how fit a counsellor I am like to be, when the best that is proposed is that which I would not consent unto to preserve the kingdom from ashes. I can tell you worse of myself than this; which is, that there may be some reasonable expedients which possibly might in truth restore and preserve all, in which I could bear no part."—P. 459. See also p. 351 and 416. I do not divine what he means by this. But what he could not have approved was, that the king had no thoughts of dealing sincerely with the parliament in this treaty, and gave Ormond directions to obey all his wife's commands, but not to obey any further orders he might send, nor to be startled at his great concessions respecting Ireland, for they would come to nothing. Carte's Papers, i. 185. See Mr. Brodie's remarks on this, iv. 143-146. He had agreed to give up the government of Ireland for twenty years to the parliament. In his answer to the propositions at Newcastle, sent in May 1647, he had declared that he would give full satisfaction with respect to Ireland. But he thus explains himself to the queen: "I have so couched that article that, if the Irish give me cause, I may interpret it enough to their advantage. For I only say that I will give them (the two houses) full satisfaction as to the management of the war, nor do I promise to continue the war; so that, if I find reason to make a good peace there, my engagement is at an end. Wherefore make this my interpretation known to the Irish." Clar. State Papers. "What reliance," says Mr. Laing, from whom I transcribe this passage (which I cannot find in the book quoted), "could parliament place at the beginning of the dispute, or at any subsequent period, on the word or moderation of a prince, whose solemn and written declarations were so full of equivocation?" Hist. of Scotland, iii. 409. It may here be added that, though Charles had given his parole to Colonel Hammond, and had the sentinels removed in consequence, he was engaged during most part of his stay at Carisbrook in schemes for an escape. See Col. Cooke's "Narrative," printed with Herbert's Memoirs; and in Rushw. Abr. vi. 534. But his enemies were apprised of this intention, and even of an attempt to escape by removing a bar of his window, as appears by the letters from the committee of Derby House, Cromwell, and others, to Col. Hammond, published in 1764.
[364] Clarendon mentions an expression that dropped from Henry Martin in conversation, not long after the meeting of the parliament: "I do not think one man wise enough to govern us all." This may doubtless be taken in a sense perfectly compatible with our limited monarchy. But Martin's republicanism was soon apparent; he was sent to the Tower in August 1643, for language reflecting on the king. Parl. Hist. 161. A Mr. Chillingworth had before incurred the same punishment for a like offence, December 1, 1641. Nalson, ii. 714. Sir Henry Ludlow, father of the regicide, was also censured on the same account. As the opposite faction grew stronger, Martin was not only restored to his seat, but the vote against him was expunged. Vane, I presume, took up republican principles pretty early; perhaps also Haslerig. With these exceptions, I know not that we can fix on any individual member of parliament the charge of an intention to subvert the constitution till 1646 or 1647.
[365] Pamphlets may be found as early as 1643 which breathe this spirit; but they are certainly rare till 1645 and 1646. Such are "Plain English," 1643; "The Character of an Anti-malignant," 1645; "Last Warning to all the Inhabitants of London," 1647.
[366] Charles Louis, elector palatine, elder brother of the Princes Rupert and Maurice, gave cause to suspect that he was looking towards the throne. He left the king's quarters where he had been at the commencement of the war, and retired to Holland; whence he wrote, as well as his mother, the Queen of Bohemia, to the parliament, disclaiming and renouncing Prince Rupert, and begging their own pensions might be paid. He came over to London in August 1644, took the covenant, and courted the parliament. They showed, however, at first, a good deal of jealousy of him; and intimated that his affairs would prosper better by his leaving the kingdom. Whitelock, 101; Rush. Abr. xv. 359. He did not take this hint, and obtained next year an allowance of £8000 per annum. Id. 145. Lady Ranelagh, in a letter to Hyde, March 1644, conjuring him by his regard for Lord Falkland's memory to use all his influence to procure a message from the king for a treaty, adds: "Methinks what I have informed my sister, and what she will inform you, of the posture of the prince elector's affairs are in here, should be a motive to hasten away this message." Clar. State Papers, ii. 167. Clarendon himself, in a letter to Nicholas, Dec. 12, 1646 (where he gives his opinion that the independents look more to a change of the king and his line than of the monarchy itself, and would restore the full prerogative of the Crown to one of their own choice), proceeds in these remarkable words: "And I pray God they have not such a nose of wax ready for their impression. This it is makes me tremble more than all their discourses of destroying monarchy; and that towards this end, they find assistance from those who from their hearts abhor their confusions." P. 308. These expressions seem more applicable by far to the elector than to Cromwell. But the former was not dangerous to the parliament, though it was deemed fit to treat him with respect. In March 1647, we find a committee of both houses appointed to receive some intelligence which the prince elector desired to communicate to the parliament of great importance to the protestant religion. Whitelock, 241. Nothing farther appears about this intelligence; which looks as if he was merely afraid of being forgotten. He left England in 1649, and died in 1680.
[367] Baxter's Life, 50. He ascribes the increase of enthusiasm in the army to the loss of its presbyterian chaplains, who left it for their benefices, on the reduction of the king's party and the new-modelling of the troops. The officers then took on them to act as preachers. Id. 54; and Neal, 183. I conceive that the year 1645 is that to which we must refer the appearance of a republican party in considerable numbers, though not yet among the House of Commons.
[368] These passed against the royalist members separately, and for the most part in the first months of the war.
[369] "The best friends of the parliament were not without fears what the issue of the new elections might be; for though the people durst not choose such as were open enemies to them, yet probably they would such as were most likely to be for a peace on any terms, corruptly preferring the fruition of their estates and sensual enjoyments before the public interest," etc. Ludlow, i. 168. This is a fair confession how little the commonwealth party had the support of the nation.