"You know," he said, "that my best hopes are still in Scotland, and not with these rebels. If I can make a secret treaty with the Scots, I am independent of army and Parliament both."
Lord Digby was not practical nor level-headed. His loyalty was too sincere to allow him broad-mindedness in his view of the struggle now taking place in England, and his ideas were rather fantastical and partook of that lightness and even frivolity which characterized so many of the King's followers; but even he could not help seeing that Charles was playing a game which every day became more dangerous, and that this complicated and subtle intrigue was not suited to present circumstances. A straight dealing with the army leaders, the Cavalier thought, would have been better than these underhand negotiations with the Scots, who had already proved themselves so unreliable, especially as Charles never would, under any pressure, take the Covenant, and therefore his alliance with Scotland could only be based on delusion and fraud; while, at the same time, if these negotiations were revealed, the English Parliament and the English army would be further set against the King, and with England and the divisions in England lay Charles' best chance—not in his northern kingdom.
It was these constant intrigues and subterfuges on the part of the King, his blindness to his real interests, his unconquerable disdain of his enemies, his firm refusal to believe that any pact or agreement was possible between him, the King, and them, his subjects, his proud resignation, which would take any ill, but would never give way on any detail, however small, that had driven those fierce and downright Princes, Rupert and Maurice, out of England. Rupert had thought the Royal cause lost before he delivered Bristol, yet the King had had many chances since then, all lost, or missed, or flung away.
He was too extraordinarily incredulous of his enemies' successes; it seemed as if he could not believe nor remember that he was no longer what he had been, one of the foremost kings in Europe, but a monarch without an army, without a town, without revenues or allies, separated from his family, surrounded by adversaries, practically a prisoner, and dependent on the dole of the Parliament for the very bread he ate. Charles could not realize these things—his birth, his instincts, his character were too strong for his intelligence, though that was not mean—and he still blinded himself with the idea that he was the King, and that he needed no other claim and no other force than what lay in those words to eventually triumph over, and be signally revenged on, his rebellious subjects.
Not that Charles had shown this temper too openly or exhibited any outward folly in his long dealings with Scots and Parliament. These complicated negotiations had shown him at his best; he had been clever, learned, courteous, full of resource and firmness. The principle of his unalterable divine authority (the rock on which all the various hopes of a compromise were eventually shattered) he kept securely out of sight, being too proud to vaunt or rave. None the less it was there, and he was disdainfully storing up future vengeance for all of them—Scots, Presbyterians, Parliament men, army men, and Puritans—when the time should come for him to have done playing with them.
Such advisers as he had (the Queen was still the foremost) supported him in his views and in the means he took to advance his aims; but now affairs were become so desperate that he held the bare semblance of kingship only by the consent and tolerance of the Parliament and the army. And it occurred to many, as it occurred now to Lord Digby, that an open peace with the rebels on the best terms to be got was the safest, indeed the only, policy to be pursued.
Lord Digby ventured now to say as much, in guarded and respectful terms, but with as much weight as his own volatile nature (only too much like Charles' own) would allow.
The King, resting one elbow on the window-sill, his chin in his hand and his eyes fixed on the passing glitter of the river, listened with impatience hardly disguised.
Soon he interrupted.