The Upper House resolved that it would be well for the King to come to Oatlands, so as to be nearer Parliament; but as some difficulties might be expected to be raised, it was suggested that he should escape by flight from his detention at Holmby, and come to the city. He might merely alight at the Lord Mayor’s, appear in Parliament under the escort of that portion of the citizens which was devoted to him, and thence repair to Whitehall. The Countesses of Carlisle and Devonshire recommended this plan, though they could not suggest the proper means for executing it: not only Warwick and Holland and many English Presbyterians, but also some Scots were in favour of it. Bellièvre undertook to arrange it with the King[485].
While the Parliamentary leaders were thus pursuing more eagerly than ever the idea of an accommodation with the King, they made at the same time earnest preparations for either keeping the army in obedience, or getting rid of it altogether. In reply to the complaints of the troops Parliament agreed to concessions in respect to indemnity and security for arrears, but insisted on the army being disbanded. On May 25 it issued an order prescribing the mode in which this should take place in the different regiments, fixing the place and the day, and the direction in which those were to move who would take service in Ireland. Commencement was to be made on June 1 with Fairfax’s regiment: the commissioners of Parliament, among them the A.D. 1647. Earl of Warwick, set out with the money required for completing it.
Once more there was a great opportunity for the Presbyterian schemes: removal of the Independent opposition, reconciliation with the King, and alliance with France, seemed all attainable in the immediate future. But, as has been said, this danger stimulated all the strength of the Independents, thus threatened, and in itself so powerful. The time was come when they must decide whether to yield to the majority of Parliament, or to offer resistance. Should the generals and colonels, who not unjustly asserted that they had done most in the war with the King, obey an authority formed on the basis of their victory, but established with no legal warranty, and in itself unconsolidated, if it issued orders which were ruinous to them? Should the soldiers too surrender the religious independence for which they had taken up arms, for a system no less oppressive to them than the old one, and submit to a new yoke? With these considerations of personal interest was united a dislike to a close connexion with the Scots, and to their influence, which threatened to make England dependent on foreign counsels. As matters stood then it may well be maintained that for the future and the greatness of England, both in the British Islands and in the world at large, more was to be expected from the continued freedom of the army and its further victories, than from the treaties and alliances of the Presbyterians.
That all this was fully considered we cannot suppose: but hostilities and oppositions are at once personal and ideal: the contending factions were maintaining at the same time their own private cause and one of public importance.
The disbanding could not be accomplished at once. A petition in the name of the soldiery proposed a general assembly: the officers thought it impossible to refuse such a meeting, because it could not well be prevented, and would be all the more dangerous if held without the officers: while assenting to the petition, they at the same time requested the general to press Parliament to revise the order for disbanding, and also to postpone the operation of it. What if it should be still persisted in? On the appointed day, A.D. 1647. June 12, the commissioners appointed to execute it in Fairfax’s regiment arrived at head-quarters. In order to avoid an immediate conflict the regiment determined to move off: the major took possession of the colours and led the troops, as if it were done on his own account, to the appointed place of meeting. The same feelings prevailed in the other regiments and their commanders: of all the colonels perhaps only six did not concur.
With this evasive disobedience was joined an act of the most arbitrary character. The army could not and would not let the King go to London: for then, in one way or another, the scheme already projected would have been executed, and through the newly-awakened sympathies of the Londoners a royalist combination might have been completed. The powerless King formed a subject of jealousy between the different parties. Parliament had been unwilling to leave him in the hands of the Scots: the army resolved to withdraw him from the influence of Parliament.
On June 2, 1647, King Charles I had already retired to rest at Holmby, when a couple of squadrons of Cromwellian horse appeared before the house, under a cornet named Joyce, who, though without any producible warrant[486], appeared with so much authority that the audience which he demanded to have immediately could not be refused to him. He then informed the King that the army, fearing that Parliament would carry him off and raise other troops in his name, requested him to follow him. As the commissioners could offer no resistance, the King assented, only expressing the supposition that he would be treated with the respect due to him, and would not be oppressed in his conscience. Next morning he had this confirmed by the assembled soldiers, and then for the first time asked for the cornet’s warrant. He said that his warrant was the men behind him: the King replied laughing, that it was a warrant which needed no spelling. ‘But what would you do, if I did not follow you? You A.D. 1647. would not, I think, lay hands on me; for I am your King: no one is above me, save God alone[487].’
The King had been transferred without difficulty from the custody of the Scots to that of Parliament; for therein, as he said at the time, he changed only his place, and not his condition: he now with a certain appearance of free-will followed the stronger power. He had as yet no knowledge of the plan of flight to London: the letter in which Bellièvre informed him of it is dated on that very 2nd of June: it was still doubtful whether he would even come to terms with the Presbyterians. Meanwhile he felt daily and hourly the pressure of their treatment: the Independents, from their principles, were more tolerant gaolers.
This falling into the hands of the army, in which fundamentally anti-monarchical principles were dominant, was a decisive event in Charles I’s history. Who gave instructions for carrying him off? Who was the leader in the matter? Parliament at the time, like all its contemporaries and posterity, had no doubt that Cromwell was the soul of it all. Just at this time the purpose of arresting him had again been formed, but he had gone to the army at the right moment. Even now he remained entirely in the background. The order executed by Joyce proceeded not from him, but from a committee of the soldiers.
The King was immediately conducted to the neighbourhood of Newmarket, where the announced general meeting of the troops took place. His presence, which secured the army against the formation of a threatening combination, doubtless also contributed to its assuming a haughtier attitude, and openly avowing aggressive purposes. The army declared the resolution for disbanding it to be the work of evil-minded men, whose object was simply to separate officers and men, and then to ill-use both at their pleasure: it required, besides the removal of remaining grievances, security against this danger, which would last so long as those men were of consideration and influence in Parliament, and security too of a kind with A.D. 1647. which the great council of the army, consisting of the generals and two officers and two privates from each regiment, should be satisfied.