CHAPTER XVIII.
Proposals were still going on for a Treaty of Peace between the King and the Parliament. His Majesty, from what he heard of dissensions in the popular party, felt encouraged to hope for favourable terms. He had also an idea that the House of Peers, and some in the Commons, really wished for a reconciliation.[518] Laud's trial was at the time in progress, and the sympathies of the Royalists, of course, were with the prisoner. Accordingly, overtures were forwarded, from Oxford to Westminster, and, in return, Commissioners were despatched from Westminster to Oxford.[519] Their treatment, however, on reaching the latter city, was not such as to inspire much hope of a prosperous issue. The people reviled them as traitors, rogues, and rebels, and threw stones into their coaches as they rode to the quarters appointed for their entertainment at "the sign of the 'Catherine Wheel,' next St. John's College"—"a mean inn," as Whitelocke describes it, only a "little above the degree of an alehouse."[520] The conduct of Charles in sending a sealed reply telling the Commissioners they were to carry what he pleased to place in their hands, although it should be but the Song of Robin Hood and Little John, certainly did not tend to an amicable adjustment of affairs; and his duplicity in calling the Lords and Commons at Westminster a Parliament, whilst he entered upon record in his council book that the calling them so did not imply that they were such, proves that his only object was to pacify his opponents for a time, that he might do what he liked with them whenever they should be again within his power.[521]
1645, January.
Treaty at Uxbridge.
At length, the preliminaries of a treaty were arranged, and a meeting was fixed to take place in the town of Uxbridge in the month of January, 1645. The propositions of Parliament related to religion, the militia, and Ireland; and the Commissioners were instructed to stipulate that the subject of religion should be considered first, on the ground of its supreme importance.[522] When they assembled, the town, selected as the theatre of their negotiations, was divided into two parts; the north side of the main street being allotted to the Parliamentarians, the south side to the Royalists. So crowded was every corner of the place, that some of the distinguished personages were, as Whitelocke informs us, "forced to lie, two of them in a chamber together in field beds, only upon a quilt, in that cold weather, not coming into a bed during all the treaty."[523] The house chosen as most convenient for deliberation was Sir John Bennet's residence,—a picturesque building at the west end, still in existence, containing a "fair great chamber," with curiously wainscotted walls. Courtesies were exchanged between the diplomatists, but it soon plainly appeared that two hostile camps had pitched within the precincts of this little town. On a market day, just as the business of the treaty was about to commence, a lecture had to be preached in the parish church, according to established custom. Christopher Love, a young Presbyterian divine, full of fervour and zeal, happened then to be officiating as chaplain to the garrison at Windsor, and he had just travelled to Uxbridge in order to perform there this popular service. Farmers who came to sell their corn, and even persons in the train of the noble visitors from Oxford, contributed to increase the congregation which crowded the church. The preacher's discourse was reported by certain hearers to the authorities on the south side of the High Street as being of a seditious and intolerable character. On the following morning a paper was handed over to the party on the north side of the street, complaining of the sermon, and alleging that the preacher had gone so far as to declare that the King's representatives had "come with hearts full of blood, and that there was as great a distance between this treaty and peace as between heaven and hell." They therefore desired justice might be executed upon this fomenter of strife. The same day saw an answer returned, to the effect that Love was not included in the retinue of the Commissioners from London; that they wished all causes of offence to be avoided; and that they would report the circumstances which had occurred to the Lords and Commons, who, they were quite sure, would consider the matter "according to justice."[524] So the matter dropped.
1645, February.
It is curious to find Clarendon lamenting that Uxbridge Church was now in the possession of the Presbyterians, and that, according to the ordinance just issued, the Directory had there taken the place of the Prayer Book. The King's Commissioners, therefore, who would willingly have gone to church, were restrained from doing so, and had to observe days of devotion in "their great room of the inn," where, as the historian states, many who came from town and from the country daily resorted.[525] The tables were turned; Episcopalians and Presbyterians had changed places; and his Majesty's followers found themselves at Uxbridge in the ranks of dissent.
Treaty at Uxbridge.