[471] ‘A proposition which no man but myself has thought on.’ Charles I for William Murray. Clarendon State Papers ii. 267.
[472] The two letters; Clarendon State Papers ii. 265, 267.
[473] His Majesty’s answer to the propositions, in Burnet, Hamiltons 299. As it appears, it was first drawn up towards the middle of November during a second visit of Murray to Newcastle (Letter to the Queen of Nov. 14 in Bruce 75). The earlier drafts, differing in some few points, were also communicated to the Queen.
[474] ‘La paix générale se faisant, comme, Dieu mercy, nous sommes à la veille, la France se declarera en faveur du roy de la Gr. Brne., comme aussi, si dés à present il ne manquoit pour faire declarer en faveur du dit roy, si ce n’est que la France se declarast, LL. MM. y seroient disposés, pourvu que Ton vit evidemment Futilité du restablissement du roi.’ (Mazarin to Bellièvre, Dec. 10.)
[475] Letter of Lanerick, Dec. 17, in Burnet, Hamiltons 306.
[476] So says Montereuil, to whom the King had told it. Jan. 26.
CHAPTER III.
THE PARLIAMENT AND ARMY AT VARIANCE.
It has always been a matter of surprise, both at the time and since, that King Charles attached so much importance to the maintenance of Episcopacy, even more than to the preservation of his military prerogative. In one of his letters to his wife he writes that a King of England, even if he remains in possession of military power, will have but little enjoyment of it, so long as obedience is not preached from the pulpits, and that this can never be obtained from the Presbyterians: for their view was to wrest from the crown its ecclesiastical authority, and place it in the hands of Parliament, and also to introduce the doctrine that the supreme power belongs to the people, that the prince may be called to account and punished by them, and that resistance to him is a lawful thing[477]. To these views and doctrines Charles I would not submit, being every moment conscious that he was contending for right by the grace of God, for the old personal authority of the crown.
Even in the condition of strict imprisonment in which he was kept, he still possessed power, and felt it. The Lower House changed a number of the propositions rejected by him—for instance the abolition of Episcopacy, and the arrangements about the military authority—into ordinances; but laws they could not become without the King’s assent: it was felt to be of some importance to obtain it from him. Moreover there A.D. 1647. were other complications which made the Parliament anxious for its own sake to come to terms with the King.
The Presbyterian majority proceeded to execute its great long-prepared and decisive scheme for putting down the Independents. It was this purpose which was originally at the bottom of their connexion with the Scots, in conformity to the interests of both parties. The Scots agreed so easily to quit England, in order to remove the pretext on which the retention of an army in England was justified. To disband the army would be the ruin of the entire party which relied upon it. For the same reason the city lent the money requisite to content the Scots and induce them to depart. The agreement by which the King was delivered into the hands of the English Parliament was intended to serve also as a reason for disbanding the army, now that all that quarrel was terminated[478]. Under the additional influence of various petitions which came in from all parts of the country against burdening it any longer with the cost of a standing army which was no more wanted, the Lower House at the beginning of March 1647 passed several comprehensive resolutions about the further destination of the army.