Meanwhile Byron had occupied Anglesey, from whence he roused his old friends in Cheshire and North Wales to resistance against the Parliament. In South Wales Colonel Poyer held Pembroke Castle: he refused at the command of Parliament to surrender his strong castle to the general, whom he designated King Fairfax, saying that he would maintain the A.D. 1648. cause of the true King against him: he raised the red war-standard and summoned the neighbouring gentry to take up arms. Many promised him their help. Petitions in favour of the King and of the Book of Common Prayer were put in circulation. It is asserted that in Cornwall nearly 4000 men assembled under the King’s banner. The troops wore blue and white ribbons in their hats, with the inscription ‘We wish to see our King.’
The movement seized also in a remarkable manner on the fleet which lay in the Downs. The desertion of the fleet had chiefly occasioned the misfortunes of Charles I, and the Presbyterian sentiments, which then had struck the first blow, had always prevailed among the sailors; but these now operated in favour of the King. The fleet also desired personal communication for the King, the observance of the old laws of the land, above all the dissolution of the Independent army. The attempt to force on them, as vice-admiral, Colonel Rainsborough, a member of the army of the most decided type, who had now made his peace with Cromwell, caused the outbreak of an actual revolt. A number of ships quitted the Downs to sail over to Holland, whither the young Duke of York had lately succeeded in escaping. The leaders were presented to him at Helvoetsluys, and implored him to be their admiral. In a short time however the Prince of Wales arrived in the Netherlands, and took the chief command, for which he was in years more capable: we find him soon afterwards cruising on the English coasts with the vessels that had gone over, but without any marked success.
The cry of the sailors was almost universal in England. Without giving way to the special tendencies of the Scots, the people demanded the observance of the laws, according to which free-born Englishmen were accustomed to be governed, and leave to the King for free personal communication.
When the alliance of the opposite powers, to which the Royalists had succumbed, fell to pieces, all their hopes again revived. Everywhere the old Cavaliers rose. In one of their pamphlets it is said that the black cloud was parting which A.D. 1648. hitherto had hung over them; that their fortune was rising again from the lowest ebb; that the bravery of the North was uniting with the spirit of the South; and that on Hounslow, Dunsmore, Blackheath, on all heaths and heights men were gathering at the call of honour. Now they would have the citizens on their side, who, no longer poisoned by city air, were resolved to die on the bed of honour for the prerogative of their King, which implied the liberty of his subjects. Who could see with dry eyes the indignities which the King had to endure? He would long ago have succumbed to machinations and conspiracies, had not the hand of God rescued him. The undaunted Cavalier would seek for peace sword in hand, but would also exact retribution for past crimes. Were there not nobles who had been murdered, had seen their daughters carried off, their homes plundered, because they wished to defend their houses[514]? In an unexpected and singular manner the complaints of the cities corresponded with the views of the Cavaliers. In London it was said that the capital had done most towards carrying on the war, and that the army might well be content with what the city had done; but yet it wanted to exact its arrears from the city, and oppressed it cruelly.
Hitherto the relations between the King and Parliament had been the only point debated; the rights of the people had been included in those of Parliament. Now however that an authority had been formed which oppressed at once King, Parliament, and people, the popular antipathy was directed against it. The feeling now began to gain ground that the rights of the crown form a part of the public freedom.
It was declared that the King and the country were in the same case, both injured and abused in their rights; that the prerogative of the King and the liberty of the country were most closely connected with one another; and that there was no hope of restoring the latter before the King sat again on his throne[515]. The holders of power were designated in the A.D. 1648. style of the times as ambitious Absaloms who were become haughty Rehoboams. The only means of resistance to them lay in the union of all loyal men in order to work with all their might for the restoration of the King. The Londoners were heard to say that they would spend as much more to restore the King and avenge themselves on their oppressors.
The prevailing party sought to check this inclination by a detailed statement of the King’s transgressions in the style of the old Remonstrance, and this time also avoided laying it before the Lords: it was merely the work of the Lower House, which had many debates over it, for the imputations raised did not seem to all to be well founded. A minority, considerable under the circumstances (fifty votes against eighty), declared against it at the last division: but to the majority the declaration appeared necessary in order to explain to some extent, as well as to strengthen, the proceedings taken against the King. The accusations were directed no longer, as formerly, against his bad advisers, but against himself, and a readiness was evinced to carry on the government without further reference to him[516]. This time however the declaration produced an effect contrary to what was intended, being without the religious impulse which had given its effect to the first, and being intended less to destroy a government that had grown hateful, than to pave the way for a new one that already excited disapproval. Most men considered that Parliament, in undertaking to govern without the King who had summoned it, was committing a flagrant usurpation. Declarations which were secretly put in circulation in the King’s name found general favour. Parliament confiscated and burned the copies which fell into its hands, but they were nevertheless spread abroad in the city, in the country, and even in the army: the pains which Parliament took to discover their origin gave them all the greater weight, as leading to the conclusion that they A.D. 1648. really proceeded from the King[517]. The reports of the movements in Scotland gave the liveliest satisfaction both in the capital and in the provinces: the conduct of the rulers in England in entering into negotiations with the Scots, and sparing nothing to win over their leaders, was due to their fear less of the strength of the Scots than of their influence over England[518], or perhaps both motives were combined. Had they not been afraid of the Scots they would have entirely disarmed the city and dispersed the Common Council. At the same time apprehension of a rising in the city deterred them from encountering the Scots with the vigour which would otherwise have characterised their views and actions[519]. Effects of this feeling were conspicuous in Parliament even under present conditions. The leaders expected to find themselves in a position to carry into execution one of the demands contained in their four bills, namely to prorogue Parliament and intrust the exercise of the supreme authority to a committee in its stead[520]. They abstained from so doing because it might easily have caused an open insurrection. Mazarin said that the King ought to be thankful to his enemies for having rejected conditions which would have been most burdensome to the crown, and for having issued offensive manifestos against him, for that public opinion had been thereby won over to his side.
A tumult was caused in London about this time (April 6/16) by the apprentices who would not be debarred their Sunday A.D. 1648. amusements outside the gates, and held their ground against the attack of the militia, and even of some detachments of regular troops, so that for a moment they were masters of the city: but no great consequences resulted, as they were without leaders, and were put down the next day without difficulty: but they had given cheers for the King, and exhibited the dislike of the populace to the existing order of things. It was said in the city that the leaders of the army and their adherents in Parliament had succeeded in alienating Parliament and the citizens from each other: an honourable man might be deceived once, but not a second time: and now they were seeking to separate them from their best friends, the Scots, but that should not be done: that these Grandees were a worse faction than ever the Spanish had been, and that reconciliation with them would mean ruin of religion and law[521]. Cromwell is said to have declared that the city must either be brought to better obedience or laid in the dust.
Gradually,—for between the opinions of a capital and those of an assembly sitting in it there operate unavoidably mutual influences of very various kinds,—at the end of April or beginning of May, a most extensive change in the sentiments of Parliament was observed. The Presbyterians regained the preponderance: the Independents either gave way for the moment, or were in the minority. Resolutions for increasing the power of the military commanders, which had passed the Lords, were rejected in the Lower House. The city was restored to full control over its militia, and allowed to name the governor of the Tower, and the duty of guarding the Parliament was again intrusted to it. The troops of Fairfax quitted the posts, of which they had taken possession during the tumult in the previous year, and the aldermen who had been imprisoned in consequence were again set free[522].
Still more significant was the revocation of the decree made A.D. 1648. at the beginning of the year about the King and the government. It was resolved by a considerable majority—for the moderates who had retired had now returned—that the constitution of England, according to which King, Lords, and Commons co-operated in the government, should not be altered, and that without regard to the divisions of January 3, the proposals made to the King before his flight to the Isle of Wight should be repeated, and negotiations opened with him about them[523]. On May 19 Parliament sent a deputation to the Common Council, to inform the city of these resolutions, and to begin the restoration of the old relations of mutual confidence and co-operation. The Common Council answered that these overtures were like a beam of light breaking through the clouds, and that the city would live and die with Parliament for the maintenance of the League and Covenant. But it was no longer the old idea of the League and Covenant on strict Church principles, in which the city and Parliament united: they agreed unhesitatingly with the adherents of Hamilton, who were now supreme in Scotland, in accepting the King’s last proposals as the basis of a future understanding: and the city also required that he should be allowed to deal personally with Parliament, and that the army should be disbanded.