[Footnote 2: Of this answer, Charles himself says to the Scottish commissioners. "Be not startled at my answer which I gave yesterday to the two houses; for if you truly understand it, I have put you in a right way, where before you were wrong."—Memoirs of Hamiltons, 323.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1647. August 24.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1647. Sept. 8.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1647. Sept. 9.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1647. Sept. 21.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1647. Sept. 22.]
twenty days; but it occupied more than two months; for there was now a third house to consult, the council of war, which debated every clause, and notified its resolves to the Lords and Commons, under the modest, but expressive, name of the desires of the army.[1]
While the king sought thus to flatter the officers, he was, according to his custom, employed in treating with the opposite party.[2] The marquess of Ormond, and the lord Capel,[3] with the Scottish commissioners, waited on him from London; and a resolution was[a] formed that in the next spring, the Scots should enter England with a numerous army, and call on the Presbyterians for their aid; that Charles, if he were at liberty, otherwise the prince of Wales, should sanction the enterprise by his presence; and that Ormond should resume the government of Ireland, while Capel summoned to the royal standard the remains of the king's party in England. Such was the outline of the plan; the minor details had not been arranged, when Cromwell, either informed by his spies, or prompted by his suspicions, complained to Ashburnham of the incurable duplicity of his master, who was
[Footnote 1: Ludlow, i. 184. Whitelock, 269. Huntingdon in Journals, x. 410. Journals, v. Sept. 22. On the division, Cromwell was one of the tellers for the Yea, and Colonel Rainsborough, the chief of the Levellers, for the No. It was carried by a majority of 84 to 34.—Ibid.]
[Footnote 2: In vindication of Charles it has been suggested that he was only playing at the same game as his opponents, amusing them as they sought to amuse him. This, however, is very doubtful as far as it regards the superior officers, who appear to me to have treated with him in good earnest, till they were induced to break off the negotiation by repeated proofs of his duplicity, and the rapid growth of distrust and disaffection in the army. I do not, however, give credit to Morrice's tale of a letter from Charles to Henrietta intercepted by Cromwell and Ireton.]
[Footnote 3: Capel was one of the most distinguished of the royal commanders, and had lately returned from beyond the sea with the permission of parliament.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1647. October.]
at the same time soliciting the aid, and plotting the destruction of the army.[1]
But by this time a new party had risen, equally formidable to royalists, Presbyterians, and Independents. Its founders were a few fanatics in the ranks, who enjoyed the reputation of superior godliness. They pretended not to knowledge or abilities; they were but humble individuals, to whom God had given reason for their guide, and whose duty it was to act as that reason dictated. Hence they called themselves Rationalists, a name which was soon exchanged for the more expressive appellation of Levellers. In religion they rejected all coercive authority; men might establish a public worship at their pleasure, but, if it were compulsory, it became unlawful by forcing conscience, and leading to wilful sin: in politics they taught that it was the duty of the people to vindicate their own rights and do justice to their own claims. Hitherto the public good had been sacrificed to private interest; by the king, whose sole object was the recovery of arbitrary power; by the officers, who looked forward to commands, and titles, and emoluments; and by the parliament, which sought chiefly the permanence of its own authority. It was now time for the oppressed to arise, to take the cause into their own hands, and to resolve "to part with their lives, before they would part with their freedom."[2] These doctrines