The propositions stipulated, that his Majesty should call in his declarations against the Parliament; place the control of the militia in its hands for twenty years; make void all peerages which had been conferred since May the 20th, 1642; punish such delinquents as had been proscribed; and disannul the Irish treaty. With these political demands others were coupled in relation to the Church. First, his Majesty must take the Covenant, and enjoin the same on his subjects; next, the ecclesiastical reformation must be completed, and Popery for ever crushed. Moreover, the bill, which had been transformed into an ordinance for constituting the Westminster Assembly, must receive the royal assent; and besides these, other measures, five in number, which he had not sanctioned, and which he was desired to confirm, were repeatedly mentioned in the negotiations: (1) The abolition of the hierarchy; (2) the due observance of the Lord's Day; (3) the suppression of innovations; (4) the advancement of preaching; and (5) the prevention of non-residence. Such were the objects to which the old bills referred, and a new one is mentioned as about to be framed for regulating the Universities and Schools of England.[583]
1646.
Charles did not at once break with the Presbyterians when these proposals were made to him; on the contrary, he professed a conciliatory spirit, and kept alive their hopes of his at last making some considerable concessions;[584] yet all the while he felt a most intense antipathy to their whole system. As a staunch Episcopalian, he hated Presbyterianism in itself, and he hated it also, and perhaps still more, because it touched his royal prerogatives, and because, if established, it would leave him only the name of a King; since, under pretence of a thorough reformation of religion, it would in reality take away all ecclesiastical power from the crown. All this he had said in letters which he wrote to the Queen; and, in one written from Newcastle (September the 7th), six weeks after the Parliamentary Commissioners had read their paper to him in the Council-room, he thus expresses himself to his "dear heart:"—"I assure thee that (by the grace of God) nothing can be said or done to me which shall make me quit my grounds; as, for instance, neither to grant the London propositions as they are (without great amendment), or sign or authorize the Covenant, without which, I must again tell thee, I am more and more assured that nothing can be expected from the Scots."
Allusions in his private correspondence to the Covenant for awhile betray no excitement: they are calmly expressed; but at last, doubtless harassed by solicitations on that point, enough to try any man's temper, he bursts into a violent passion, and writes to his wife in the following language: "This damned Covenant is the child of rebellion, and breathes nothing but treason, so that, if Episcopacy were to be introduced by the Covenant, I would not do it."[585] It was impossible for him to have said anything stronger than this; and with such feelings on the part of the King, the Newcastle Treaty came to an end.
Newcastle Treaty.
If a good deal of manœuvering appear in the negotiations with the Presbyterians carried on by Charles at Newcastle, there is as much downright intrigue with other parties to be discovered in his conduct at the same time. He inherited some portion of his father's love of kingcraft, and he employed to the utmost whatever ability of that description he possessed. To repair his broken fortunes, he sedulously endeavoured to make tools of the Independents, watching with great satisfaction the animosity existing between them and the Presbyterians, and hoping, as he says, that one of the factions would so address him that he might without difficulty attain his ends.[586]
And with the one great object of this part of his life in view, he was prepared to make terms with the Papists. In a letter from Oxford, March the 12th, 1646, addressed to his wife, he speaks of a former communication in which he had said: "I will take away all the penal laws against the Roman Catholics in England as soon as God shall enable me to do it, so as by their means I may have so powerful assistance as may deserve so great a favour and enable me to do it; and furthermore I now add, that I desire some particular offers by or in the favour of the English Roman Catholics, which, if I shall like, I will then presently engage myself for the performance of the above-mentioned conditions. Moreover, if the Pope and they will visibly and heartily engage themselves for the re-establishment of the Church of England and my crown (which was understood in my former offer) against all opposers whatsoever, I will promise them on the word of a King to give them here a free toleration of their consciences."[587]
1646.
Of course, all this intriguing involved much duplicity. The collection of letters which were written by Charles in 1646, and which are now published, will be found to exhibit this prominent feature of the King's character. Whenever he formally conceded any point, some quibbling about words, some dishonest reserve, some loophole out of which he might wriggle, is sure to appear in connection with a Jesuitical conscientiousness which was ever weaving casuistic theories, and starting ethical questions, in order to cover with a veil of seemliness the most dishonest and fraudulent acts. Charles was not rashly false; he did not heedlessly tell lies; he had undoubtedly certain notions of rectitude, which served occasionally to disquiet his spirit; and he wished to appear to himself honest and true, even at the moment of his wishing to deceive others. His mind, however, in these respects, is but a specimen of a large class of persons in this world of many-coloured falsehoods and delusions.