The court party at the same time endeavoured to intrigue with the Independents, whose want of sympathy in Presbyterian projects had become obvious to all. Flattering offers were made to them if they would break with the Scotch, abandon the Covenant, join the Royalists, and agree to the establishment of a moderate Episcopacy. Toleration was promised upon these conditions, and it was said: "Mr. Nye should be one of the King's chaplains, and several other Independents should be highly preferred and rewarded."[380] With these larger intrigues were mixed up certain minor ones for the purpose of inducing officers of the garrison at Windsor Castle and Aylesbury to betray those places into the King's hands. The person who appears most prominently among the Royalist agents in these schemes was one Serjeant-major Ogle, who had been taken prisoner by the Parliament, and who was lodged in Winchester House. References to him, as a notorious plotter in the service of his Majesty, occur in the publications of that day, and he also figures in that capacity upon the pages of the Parliamentary journals.[381] His own version of the part he played comes to light in the following letter found in the State Paper Office. Giving an account of himself at a later period, he says:—
"It pleased his Majesty," that blessed martyr, my ever-blessed master, to give his express orders unto me (then a prisoner in Winchester House, only upon his Majesty's interest), to proceed with Mr. Nye, Goodwin, Homstead, Grafton, Moseley, Devenish, and some other of the Independent faction, according to a letter of mine unto the Earl of Bristol, intimating their desires to his Majesty, on their own and all the rests' behalf, in order to their plenary satisfaction and freedom from pressure of conscience in point of worship, which they judged might more easily and safely be obtained, and by them more honestly and honourably accepted from the King than the Covenant then in its triumphant career in London, they having failed of their expectation from the address they made to his Majesty by Sir Basil Brooke. Upon receipt of which warrant from his Majesty, I did conclude upon certain articles, or rather propositions, in order to a treaty upon their coming to Oxford, for which purpose I received a safe conduct from his Majesty, with a blank for such names as I thought fit to insert, and a hundred pounds out of his Majesty's county, towards relief of my necessities.
Court Intrigues.
"The general, upon which all particulars were founded, was, that if his Majesty pleased to give them assurance of liberty of conscience, upon their submission to the temporal authority, they would employ their whole interest in opposition to the Scotch Covenant, to serve his Majesty against the two Houses, and submit to a moderate Episcopacy, which they judged to be far more tolerable than the other, and, indeed, the only way to settle the nation: and from this general one particular was, that they would deliver to the King Aylesbury and Windsor garrisons as pledges for performance of their future assistance upon his Majesty's command, after their coming to Oxford, and satisfaction received."[382]
It is to be observed that Ogle's letter plainly implicates the King as a prime mover in these wished-for intrigues with the Independents.
1644, January.
In the midst of these contrivances, and immediately after the detection of that in which Sir Basil Brooke was the chief actor, the corporation of London, (according to civic custom on occasions of great public interest), invited the Houses of Parliament to a grand banquet, as a proof of union in one common cause, and as a celebration of recent victory over common enemies. The invitation was formally accepted, and entered in the journals, and the Commons added to their acceptance of the invitation a request that, on the morning of the festive day, there should be in such place as the City might think fit, and by such a minister as the City might choose, a sermon for the commemoration of the recent deliverance. The Assembly of Divines also received an invitation to the festival; and further, the sheriff and aldermen, in chains and gowns, called on Baillie and his colleagues at Worcester House to join the other notabilities who were to be present at the municipal entertainment. On Thursday, the 18th of January, the Parliament, the Assembly, and the Scotch Commissioners met between nine and ten o'clock in the morning at Christ Church in the City, to hear Stephen Marshall, the preacher selected by the corporation to deliver a sermon at the request of the Commons.
The exordium to his discourse was ingenious.
Stephen Marshall's Discourse.
"Right honourable and well-beloved in our Lord,