"I will not take the Covenant. I have already refused an army because of that condition."
"You are now, sir," returned Cromwell bluntly, "dealing with Englishmen, not Scots. We set no such store by the Covenant. I said, sir, toleration."
"A word," remarked Charles, "beloved of fanatics."
"A word," said Cromwell, unmoved, "dear to honest men. We would have all deal with God according to their conscience."
The King did not think it worth while to probe into the reservation this tolerance made in disfavour of Prelacy and Papacy, the two faiths he believed in. The whole gamut of theological questions had been run through and argued upon during the conferences at Newcastle, and had left Charles as firm an adherent as before of the Anglican Church. The whole subject of the Puritan faith, associated as it was with vexation, disloyalty, and rebellion, was too distasteful a one for him to enter on; he reserved his wit and strength for the more practical issues.
"Will you tell me briefly, sir, the main purpose of this visit?"
"I wished," said Cromwell, "to sound Your Majesty. The army would not waste its labours—and Your Majesty hath been slippery," he added calmly.
The outraged blood stormed the King's cheeks; but the several instances of his duplicity were too well known and too well attested to be for an instant denied.
"I am a prisoner," he said haughtily, "and therefore forbidden resentment."