No sooner did this intelligence reach London, than the committee of the two kingdoms voted thanks to Essex for his fidelity, courage, and conduct; and this method of proceeding, no less politic than magnanimous, was preserved by the parliament throughout the whole course of the war. Equally indulgent to their friends and rigorous to their enemies, they employed with success these two powerful engines of reward and punishment, in confirmation of their authority.

That the king might have less reason to exult in the advantages which he had obtained in the west, the parliament opposed to him very numerous forces. Having armed anew Essex’s subdued but not disheartened troops, they ordered Manchester and Cromwell to march with their recruited forces from the eastern association; and, joining their armies to those of Waller and Middleton, as well as of Essex, offer battle to the king. Charles chose his post at Newbury, where the parliamentary armies, under the earl of Manchester, attacked him with great vigor; and that town was a second time the scene of the bloody animosities of the English. Essex’s soldiers, exhorting one another to repair their broken honor, and revenge the disgrace of Lestithiel, made an impetuous assault on the royalists; and having recovered some of their cannon lost in Cornwall, could not forbear embracing them with tears of joy. Though the king’s troops defended themselves with valor, they were overpowered by numbers; and the night came very seasonably to their relief, and prevented a total overthrow. Charles, leaving his baggage and cannon in Dennington Castle, near Newbury, forthwith retreated to Wallingford, and thence to Oxford. There Prince Rupert and the earl of Northampton joined him, with considerable bodies of cavalry. Strengthened by this reënforcement, he ventured to advance towards the enemy, now employed before Dennington Castle.[*] Essex, detained by sickness, had not joined the army since his misfortune in Cornwall. Manchester, who commanded, though his forces were much superior to those of the king, declined an engagement, and rejected Cromwell’s advice, who earnestly pressed him not to neglect so favorable an opportunity of finishing the war. The king’s army, by bringing off their cannon from Dennington Castle in the face of the enemy, seemed to have sufficiently repaired the honor which they had lost at Newbury; and Charles, having the satisfaction to excite between Manchester and Cromwell equal animosities with those which formerly took place between Essex and Waller,[*] distributed his army into winter quarters.

Those contests among the parliamentary generals, which had disturbed their military operations, were renewed in London during the winter season; and each being supported by his own faction, their mutual reproaches and accusations agitated the whole city and parliament. There had long prevailed in that party a secret distinction, which, though the dread of the king’s power had hitherto suppressed it, yet, in proportion as the hopes of success became nearer and more immediate, began to discover itself with high contest and animosity. The Independents, who had at first taken shelter and concealed themselves under the wings of the Presbyterians, now evidently appeared a distinct party, and betrayed very different views and pretensions. We must here endeavor to explain the genius of this party, and of its leaders, who henceforth occupy the scene of action.

During those times, when the enthusiastic spirit met with such honor and encouragement, and was the immediate means of distinction and preferment, it was impossible to set bounds to these holy fervors, or confine within any natural limits what was directed towards an infinite and a supernatural object. Every man, as prompted by the warmth of his temper, excited by emulation, or supported by his habits of hypocrisy, endeavored to distinguish himself beyond his fellows, and to arrive at a higher pitch of saintship and perfection. In proportion to its degree of fanaticism, each sect became dangerous and destructive; and as the Independents went a note higher than the Presbyterians, they could less be restrained within any bounds of temper and moderation. From this distinction, as from a first principle, were derived, by a necessary consequence, all the other differences of these two sects.

The Independents rejected all ecclesiastical establishments, and would admit of no spiritual courts, no government among pastors, no interposition of the magistrate in religious concerns, no fixed encouragement annexed to any system of doctrines or opinions. According to their principles, each congregation, united voluntarily and by spiritual ties, composed within itself a separate church, and exercised a jurisdiction, but one destitute of temporal sanctions, over its own pastor and its own members. The election alone of the congregation was sufficient to bestow the sacerdotal character; and as all essential distinction was denied between the laity and the clergy, no ceremony, no institution, no vocation, no imposition of hands was, as in all other churches, supposed requisite to convey a right to holy orders. The enthusiasm of the Presbyterians led them to reject the authority of prelates, to throw off the restraint of liturgies, to retrench ceremonies, to limit the riches and authority of the priestly office: the fanaticism of the Independents, exalted to a higher pitch, abolished ecclesiastical government, disdained creeds and systems, neglected every ceremony, and confounded all ranks and orders. The soldier, the merchant, the mechanic, indulging the fervors of zeal, and guided by the illapses of the spirit, resigned himself to an inward and superior direction, and was consecrated, in a manner, by an immediate intercourse and communication with heaven.

The Catholics, pretending to an infallible guide, had justified upon that principle their doctrine and practice of persecution; the Presbyterians, imagining that such clear and certain tenets as they themselves adopted could be rejected only from a criminal and pertinacious obstinacy, had hitherto gratified to the full their bigoted zeal, in a like doctrine and practice: the Independents, from the extremity of the same zeal, were led into the milder principles of toleration. Their mind, set afloat in the wide sea of inspiration, could confine itself within no certain limits; and the same variations in which an enthusiast indulged himself, he was apt, by a natural train of thinking, to permit in others. Of all Christian sects, this was the first which, during its prosperity as well as its adversity, always adopted the principle of toleration; and it is remarkable that so reasonable a doctrine owed its origin, not to reasoning, but to the height of extravagance and fanaticism.

Popery and prelacy alone, whose genius seemed to tend towards superstition, were treated by the Independents with rigor. The doctrines too of fate or destiny were deemed by them essential to all religion. In these rigid opinions the whole sectaries, amidst all their other differences, unanimously concurred.

The political system of the Independents kept pace with their religious. Not content with confining to very narrow limits the power of the crown, and reducing the king to the rank of first magistrate, which was the project of the Presbyterians, this sect, more ardent in the pursuit of liberty, aspired to a total abolition of the monarchy, and even of the aristocracy, and projected an entire equality of rank and order, in a republic, quite free and independent. In consequence of this scheme, they were declared enemies to all proposals of peace, except on such terms as they knew it was impossible to obtain; and they adhered to that maxim, which is in the main prudent and political, that whoever draws the sword against his sovereign, should throw away the scabbard. By terrifying others with the fear of vengeance from the offended prince, they had engaged greater numbers into the opposition against peace, than had adopted their other principles with regard to government and religion. And the great success which had already attended the arms of the parliament, and the greater which was soon expected, confirmed them still further in this obstinacy.

Sir Henry Vane, Oliver Cromwell, Nathaniel Fiennes, and Oliver St. John, the solicitor-general, were regarded as the leaders of the Independents. The earl of Essex, disgusted with a war of which he began to foresee the pernicious consequences, adhered to the Presbyterians, and promoted every reasonable plan of accommodation. The earl of Northumberland, fond of his rank and dignity, regarded with horror a scheme which, if it took place, would confound him and his family with the lowest in the kingdom. The earls of Warwick and Denbigh, Sir Philip Stapleton, Sir William Waller, Hollis, Massey, Whitlocke, Maynard, Glyn, had embraced the same sentiments. In the parliament, a considerable majority, and a much greater in the nation, were attached to the Presbyterian party; and it was only by cunning and deceit at first, and afterwards by military violence, that the Independents could entertain any hopes of success.

The earl of Manchester, provoked at the impeachment which the king had lodged against him, had long forwarded the war with alacrity; but being a man of humanity and good principles, the view of public calamities, and the prospect of a total subversion of government, began to moderate his ardor, and inclined him to promote peace on any safe or honorable terms. He was even suspected in the field not to have pushed to the utmost against the king the advantages obtained by the arms of the parliament; and Cromwell in the public debates revived the accusation, that this nobleman had wilfully neglected at Dennington Castle a favorable opportunity of finishing the war by a total defeat of the royalists. “I showed him evidently,” said Cromwell, “how this success might be obtained; and only desired leave, with my own brigade of horse to charge the king’s army in their retreat; leaving it in the earl’s choice, if he thought proper, to remain neuter with the rest of his forces: but, notwithstanding my importunity, he positively refused his consent; and gave no other reason but that, if we met with a defeat, there was an end of our pretensions we should all be rebels and traitors, and be executed and forfeited by law.”[*]

Manchester, by way of recrimination, informed the parliament, that, at another time, Cromwell having proposed some scheme to which it seemed improbable the parliament would agree, he insisted, and said, “My lord, if you will stick firm to honest men, you shall find yourself at the head of an army which shall give law both to king and parliament.” “This discourse,” continued Manchester, “made the greater impression on me, because I knew the lieutenant-general to be a man of very deep designs; and he has even ventured to tell me, that it never would be well with England till I were Mr. Montague, and there were ne’er a lord or peer in the kingdom.”[*] So full was Cromwell of these republican projects, that, notwithstanding his habits of profound dissimulation, he could not so carefully guard his expressions, but that sometimes his favorite notions would escape him.

These violent dissensions brought matters to extremity, and pushed the Independents to the execution of their designs. The present generals, they thought, were more desirous of protracting than finishing the war; and having entertained a scheme for preserving still some balance in the constitution, they were afraid of entirely subduing the king, and reducing him to a condition where he should not be entitled to ask any concessions. A new model alone of the army could bring complete victory to the parliament, and free the nation from those calamities under which it labored. But how to effect this project was the difficulty. The authority, as well as merits, of Essex was very great with the parliament. Not only he had served them all along with the most exact and scrupulous honor: it was in some measure owing to his popularity that they had ever been enabled to levy an army, or make head against the royal cause. Manchester, Warwick, and the other commanders, had likewise great credit with the public; nor were there any hopes of prevailing over them, but by laying the plan of an oblique and artificial attack, which would conceal the real purposes of their antagonists. The Scots and the Scottish commissioners, jealous of the progress of the Independents, were a new obstacle, which, without the utmost art and subtlety, it would be difficult to surmount.[**]

The methods by which this intrigue was conducted are so singular, and show so fully the genius of the age, that we shall give a detail of them as they are delivered by Lord Clarendon.[*]

A fast, on the last Wednesday of every month, had been ordered by the parliament at the beginning of these commotions; and their preachers on that day were careful to keep alive, by their vehement declamations, the popular prejudices entertained against the king, against prelacy, and against Popery. The king, that he might combat the parliament with their own weapons, appointed likewise a monthly fast, when the people should be instructed in the duties of loyalty, and of submission to the higher powers; and he chose the second Friday of every month for the devotion of the royalists.[**] It was now proposed and carried in parliament, by the Independents, that a new and more solemn fast should be voted; when they should implore the divine assistance for extricating them from those perplexities in which they were at present involved. On that day, the preachers, after many political prayers, took care to treat of the reigning divisions in the parliament, and ascribed them entirely to the selfish ends pursued by the members. In the hands of those members, they said, are lodged all the considerable commands of the army, all the lucrative offices in the civil administration: and while the nation is falling every day into poverty, and groans under an insupportable load of taxes, these men multiply possession on possession, and will in a little time be masters of all the wealth of the kingdom. That such persons, who fatten on the calamities of their country, will ever embrace any effectual measure for bringing them to a period, or insuring final success to the war, cannot reasonably be expected. Lingering expedients alone will be pursued; and operations in the field concurring in the same pernicious end with deliberations in the cabinet, civil commotions will forever be perpetuated in the nation. After exaggerating these disorders, the ministers returned to their prayers; and besought the Lord that he would take his own work into his own hand; and if the instruments whom he had hitherto employed were not worthy to bring to a conclusion so glorious a design, that he would inspire others more fit, who might perfect what was begun, and, by establishing true religion, put a speedy period to the public miseries.

On the day subsequent to these devout animadversions when the parliament met, a new spirit appeared in the looks of many. Sir Henry Vane told the commons, that if ever God appeared to them, it was in the ordinances of yesterday; that, as he was credibly informed by many who had been present in different congregations, the same lamentations and discourses which the godly preachers had made before them, had been heard in other churches: that so remarkable a concurrence could proceed only from the immediate operation of the Holy Spirit: that he therefore entreated them, in vindication of their own honor, in consideration of their duty to God and their country, to lay aside all private ends, and renounce every office attended with profit or advantage: that the absence of so many members, occupied in different employments, had rendered the house extremely thin, and diminished the authority of their determinations: and that he could not forbear, for his own part, accusing himself as one who enjoyed a gainful office, that of treasurer of the navy; and though he was possessed of it before the civil commotions, and owed it not to the favor of the parliament, yet was he ready to resign it, and to sacrifice, to the welfare of his country, every consideration of private interest and advantage.

Cromwell next acted his part, and commended the preachers for having dealt with them plainly and impartially, and told them of their errors, of which they were so unwilling to be informed. Though they dwelt on many things, he said, on which he had never before reflected, yet, upon revolving them, he could not but confess that, till there were a perfect reformation in these particulars, nothing which they undertook could possibly prosper. The parliament, no doubt, continued he, had done wisely on the commencement of the war, in engaging several of its members in the most dangerous parts of it, and thereby satisfying the nation that they intended to share all hazards with the meanest of the people. But affairs are now changed. During the progress of military operations, there have arisen in the parliamentary armies many excellent officers, who are qualified for higher commands than they are now possessed of. And though it becomes not men engaged in such a cause “to put trust in the arm of flesh,” yet he could assure them, that their troops contained generals fit to command in any enterprise in Christendom. The army, indeed, he was sorry to say it, did not correspond by its discipline to the merit of the officers; nor were there any hopes, till the present vices and disorders which prevail among the soldiers were repressed by a new model that their forces would ever be attended with signal success in any undertaking.

In opposition to this reasoning of the Independents, many of the Presbyterians showed the inconvenience and danger of the projected alteration. Whitlocke, in particular, a man of honor, who loved his country, though in every change of government he always adhered to the ruling power, said, that besides the ingratitude of discarding, and that by fraud and artifice, so many noble persons, to whom the parliament had hitherto owed its chief support, they would find it extremely difficult to supply the place of men now formed by experience to command and authority: that the rank alone possessed by such as were members of either house, prevented envy, retained the army in obedience, and gave weight to military orders: that greater confidence might safely be reposed in men of family and fortune, than in mere adventurers, who would be apt to entertain separate views from those which were embraced by the persons who employed them: that no maxim of policy was more undisputed, than the necessity of preserving an inseparable connection between the civil and military powers, and of retaining the latter in strict subordination to the former: that the Greeks and Romans, the wisest and most passionate lovers of liberty, had ever intrusted to their senators the command of armies, and had maintained an unconquerable jealousy of all mercenary forces: and that such men alone, whose interests were involved in those of the public, and who possessed a vote in the civil deliberations, would sufficiently respect the authority of parliament, and never could be tempted to turn the sword against those by whom it was committed to them.[*]

Notwithstanding these reasonings, a committee was chosen to frame what was called the “self-denying ordinance,” by which the members of both houses were excluded from all civil and military employments, except a few offices which were specified. This ordinance was the subject of great debate, and for a long time rent the parliament and city into factions. But at last, by the prevalence of envy with some; with others, of false modesty; with a great many, of the republican and Independent views; it passed the house of commons, and was sent to the upper house. The peers, though the scheme was in part levelled against their order; though all of them were at bottom extremely averse to it; though they even ventured once to reject it; yet possessed so little authority, that they durst not persevere in opposing the resolution of the commons; and they thought it better policy, by an unlimited compliance, to ward off that ruin which they saw approaching.[*] The ordinance, therefore, having passed both houses, Essex, Warwick, Manchester, Denbigh, Waller, Brereton, and many others, resigned their commands, and received the thanks of parliament for their good services. A pension of ten thousand pounds a year was settled on Essex.

1645.

It was agreed to recruit the army to twenty-two thousand men; and Sir Thomas Fairfax was appointed general.[**] It is remarkable that his commission did not run, like that of Essex, in the name of the king and parliament, but in that of the parliament alone; and the article concerning the safety of the king’s person was omitted: so much had animosities increased between the parties.[***] Cromwell, being a member of the lower house, should have been discarded with the others; but this impartiality would have disappointed all the views of those who had introduced the self-denying ordinance. He was saved by a subtlety, and by that political craft in which he was so eminent. At the time when the other officers resigned their commissions, care was taken that he should be sent with a body of horse to relieve Taunton besieged by the royalists. His absence being remarked orders were despatched for his immediate attendance in parliament; and the new general was directed to employ some other officer in that service. A ready compliance was feigned; and the very day was named on which, it was averred, he would take his place in the house. But Fairfax, having appointed a rendezvous of the army, wrote to the parliament, and desired leave to retain for some days Lieutenant General Cromwell, whose advice, he said, would be useful in supplying the place of those officers who had resigned. Shortly after, he begged, with much earnestness, that they would allow Cromwell to serve that campaign.[****] And thus the Independents, though the minority, prevailed by art and cunning over the Presbyterians, and bestowed the whole military authority in appearance, upon Fairfax; in reality, upon Cromwell.

Fairfax was a person equally eminent for courage and for humanity; and though strongly infected with prejudices, or principles derived from religious and party zeal, he seems never, in the course of his public conduct, to have been diverted by private interest or ambition from adhering strictly to these principles. Sincere in his professions, disinterested in his views, open in his conduct, he had formed one of the most shining characters of the age, had not the extreme narrowness of his genius in every thing but in war, and his embarrassed and confused elocution on every occasion but when he gave orders, diminished the lustre of his merit, and rendered the part which he acted, even when vested with the supreme command, but secondary and subordinate.

Cromwell, by whose sagacity and insinuation Fairfax was entirely governed, is one of the most eminent and most singular personages that occurs in history: the strokes of his character are as open and strongly marked, as the schemes of his conduct were, during the time, dark and impenetrable. His extensive capacity enabled him to form the most enlarged projects: his enterprising genius was not dismayed with the boldest and most dangerous. Carried by his natural temper to magnanimity, to grandeur, and to an imperious and domineering policy, he yet knew, when necessary, to employ the most profound dissimulation, the most oblique and refined artifice, the semblance of the greatest moderation and simplicity. A friend to justice, though his public conduct was one continued violation of it; devoted to religion, though he perpetually employed it as the instrument of his ambition; he was engaged in crimes from the prospect of sovereign power, a temptation which is in general irresistible to human nature. And by using well that authority which he had attained by fraud and violence, he has lessened, if not overpowered, our detestation of his enormities, by our admiration of his success and of his genius.

During this important transaction of the self-denying ordinance, the negotiations for peace were likewise carried on, though with small hopes of success. The king having sent two messages, one from Evesham,[*] another from Tavistoke,[**] desiring a treaty, the parliament despatched commissioners to Oxford with proposals, as high as if they had obtained a complete victory.[***]

The advantages gained during the campaign and the great distresses of the royalists, had much elevated their hopes; and they were resolved to repose no trust in men inflamed with the highest animosity against them, and who, were they possessed of power, were fully authorized by law to punish all their opponents as rebels and traitors.

The king, when he considered the proposals, and the disposition of the parliament, could not expect any accommodation, and had no prospect but of war, or of total submission and subjection: yet, in order to satisfy his own party, who were impatient for peace, he agreed to send the duke of Richmond and earl of Southampton with an answer to the proposals of the parliament, and at the same time to desire a treaty upon their mutual demands and pretensions.[*] It now became necessary for him to retract his former declaration, that the two houses at Westminster were not a free parliament; and accordingly he was induced, though with great reluctance, to give them, in his answer, the appellation of the parliament of England.[**] But it appeared afterwards, by a letter which he wrote to the queen, and of which a copy was taken at Naseby, that he secretly entered an explanatory protest in his council book; and he pretended, that though he had called them the parliament, he had not thereby acknowledged them for such.[***] This subtlety, which has been frequently objected to Charles, is the most noted of those very few instances from which the enemies of this prince have endeavored to load him with the imputation of insincerity; and have inferred that the parliament could repose no confidence in his professions and declarations, not even in his laws and statutes. There is, however, it must be confessed, a difference universally avowed between simply giving to men the appellation which they assume, and the formal acknowledgment of their title to it; nor is any thing more common and familiar in all public transactions.

The time and place of treaty being settled, sixteen commissioners from the king met at Uxbridge with twelve authorized by the parliament, attended by the Scottish commissioners. It was agreed, that the Scottish and parliamentary commissioners should give in their demands with regard to three important articles, religion, the militia, and Ireland; and that these should be successively discussed in conference with the king’s commissioners.[*] It was soon found impracticable to come to any agreement with regard to any of these articles.

In the summer of 1643, while the negotiations were carried on with Scotland, the parliament had summoned an assembly at Westminster, consisting of one hundred and twenty-one divines and thirty laymen, celebrated in their party for piety and learning. By their advice, alterations were made in the thirty-nine articles, or in the metaphysical doctrines of the church; and what was of greater importance, the liturgy was entirely abolished, and in its stead a new directory for worship was established; by which, suitably to the spirit of the Puritans, the utmost liberty both in praying and preaching was indulged to the public teachers. By the solemn league and covenant, episcopacy was abjured, as destructive of all true piety; and a national engagement, attended with every circumstance that could render a promise sacred and obligatory, was entered into with the Scots, never to suffer its readmission. All these measures showed little spirit of accommodation in the parliament; and the king’s commissioners were not surprised to find the establishment of presbytery and the directory positively demanded, together with the subscription of the covenant, both by the king and kingdom.[**]

Had Charles been of a disposition to neglect all theological controversy, he yet had been obliged, in good policy, to adhere to episcopal jurisdiction; not only because it was favorable to monarchy, but because all its adherents were passionately devoted to it; and to abandon them, in what they regarded as so important an article, was forever to relinquish their friendship and assistance. But Charles had never attained such enlarged principles. He deemed bishops essential to the very being of a Christian church; and he thought himself bound, by more sacred ties than those of policy, or even of honor, to the support of that order. His concessions, therefore, on this head, he judged sufficient, when he agreed that an indulgence should be given to tender consciences with regard to ceremonies; that the bishops should exercise no act of jurisdiction or ordination without the consent and counsel of such presbyters as should be chosen by the clergy of each diocese; that they should reside constantly in their diocese, and be bound to preach every Sunday; that pluralities be abolished; that abuses in ecclesiastical courts be redressed; and that a hundred thousand pounds be levied on the bishops’ estates and the chapter lands, for payment of debts contracted by the parliament.[*]

These concessions, though considerable gave no satisfaction to the parliamentary commissioners; and, without abating any thing of their rigor on this head, they proceeded to their demands with regard to the militia.

The king’s partisans had all along maintained, that the fears and jealousies of the parliament, after the securities so early and easily given to public liberty, were either feigned or groundless; and that no human institution could be better poised and adjusted than was now the government of England. By the abolition of the star chamber and court of high commission, the prerogative, they said, has lost all that coercive power by which it had formerly suppressed or endangered liberty: by the establishment of triennial parliaments, it can have no leisure to acquire new powers, or guard itself, during any time, from the inspection of that vigilant assembly: by the slender revenue of the crown, no king can ever attain such influence as to procure a repeal of these salutary statutes; and while the prince commands no military force, he will in vain by violence attempt an infringement of laws so clearly defined by means of late disputes, and so passionately cherished by all his subjects. In this situation, surely the nation, governed by so virtuous a monarch, may for the present remain in tranquillity, and try whether it be not possible, by peaceful arts, to elude that danger with which it is pretended its liberties are still threatened.

But though the royalists insisted on these plausible topics before the commencement of war, they were obliged to own, that the progress of civil commotions had somewhat abated the force and evidence of this reasoning. If the power of the militia, said the opposite party, be intrusted to the king, it would not now be difficult for him to abuse that authority. By the rage of intestine discord, his partisans are inflamed into an extreme hatred against their antagonists; and have contracted, no doubt, some prejudices against popular privileges, which, in their apprehension, have been the source of so much disorder. Were the arms of the state, therefore, put entirely into such hands, what public security, it may be demanded, can be given to liberty, or what private security to those who, in opposition to the letter of the law, have so generously ventured their lives in its defence? In compliance with this apprehension, Charles offered that the arms of the state should be intrusted, during three years, to twenty commissioners, who should be named either by common agreement between him and the parliament, or one half by him, the other by the parliament. And after the expiration of that term, he insisted that his constitutional authority over the militia should again return to him.[*]

The parliamentary commissioners at first demanded, that the power of the sword should forever be intrusted to such persons as the parliament alone should appoint:[**] but afterwards they relaxed so far as to require that authority only for seven years; after which it was not to return to the king but to be settled by bill, or by common agreement between him and his parliament.[*] The king’s commissioners asked, whether jealousies and fears were all on one side; and whether the prince, from such violent attempts and pretensions as he had experienced, had not at least as great reason to entertain apprehensions for his authority, as they for their liberty? Whether there were any equity in securing only one party, and leaving the other, during the space of seven years, entirely at the mercy of their enemies? Whether, if unlimited power were intrusted to the parliament during so long a period, it would not be easy for them to frame the subsequent bill in the manner most agreeable to themselves, and keep forever possession of the sword, as well as of every article of civil power and jurisdiction.[****]

The truth is, after the commencement of war, it was very difficult, if not impossible, to find security for both parties, especially for that of the parliament. Amidst such violent animosities, power alone could insure safety; and the power of one side was necessarily attended with danger to the other. Few or no instances occur in history of an equal, peaceful, and durable accommodation that has been concluded between two factions which had been inflamed into civil war.

With regard to Ireland, there were no greater hopes of agreement between the parties. The parliament demanded, that the truce with the rebels should be declared null; that the management of the war should be given over entirely to the parliament; and that, after the conquest of Ireland, the nomination of the lord lieutenant and of the judges, or in other words the sovereignty of that kingdom, should likewise remain in their hands.[v]

What rendered an accommodation more desperate was, that the demands on these three heads, however exorbitant, were acknowledged, by the parliamentary commissioners, to be nothing but preliminaries. After all these were granted, it would be necessary to proceed to the discussion of those other demands, still more exorbitant, which a little before had been transmitted to the king at Oxford. Such ignominious terms were there insisted on, that worse could scarcely be demanded, were Charles totally vanquished, a prisoner, and in chains. The king was required to attaint and except from a general pardon forty of the most considerable of his English subjects, and nineteen of his Scottish, together with all Popish recusants in both kingdoms who had borne arms for him. It was insisted that forty-eight more, with all the members who had sitten in either house at Oxford, all lawyers and divines who had embraced the king’s party, should be rendered incapable of any office, be forbidden the exercise of their profession, be prohibited from coming within the verge of the court, and forfeit the third of their estates to the parliament. It was required that whoever had borne arms for the king, should forfeit the tenth of their estates; or, if that did not suffice, the sixth, for the payment of public debts. As if royal authority were not sufficiently annihilated by such terms, it was demanded that the court of wards should be abolished; that all the considerable officers of the crown, and all the judges, should be appointed by parliament; and that the right of peace and war should not be exercised without the consent of that assembly.[*]

The Presbyterians, it must be confessed, after insisting on such conditions, differed only in words from the Independents, who required the establishment of a pure republic. When the debates had been carried on to no purpose during twenty days among the commissioners, they separated, and returned; those of the king to Oxford, those of the parliament to London.

A little before the commencement of this fruitless treaty, a deed was executed by the parliament, which proved their determined resolution to yield nothing, but to proceed in the same violent and imperious manner with which they had at first entered on these dangerous enterprises. Archbishop Laud, the most favored minister of the king, was brought to the scaffold; and in this instance the public might see, that popular assemblies, as, by their very number, they are in a great measure exempt from the restraint of shame, so when they also overleap the bounds of law, naturally break out into acts of the greatest tyranny and injustice.

From the time that Laud had been committed, the house of commons, engaged in enterprises of greater moment, had found no leisure to finish his impeachment, and he had patiently endured so long an imprisonment, without being brought to any trial. After the union with Scotland, the bigoted prejudices of that nation revived the like spirit in England; and the sectaries resolved to gratify their vengeance in the punishment of this prelate, who had so long, by his authority, and by the execution of penal laws, kept their zealous spirit under confinement. He was accused of high treason, in endeavoring to subvert the fundamental laws, and of other high crimes and misdemeanors. The same illegality of an accumulative crime and a constructive evidence which appeared in the case of Strafford, the same violence and iniquity in conducting the trial, are conspicuous throughout the whole course of this prosecution. The groundless charge of Popery, though belied by his whole life and conduct, was continually urged against the prisoner; and every error rendered unpardonable by this imputation, which was supposed to imply the height of all enormities. “This man, my lords,” said Serjeant Wilde, concluding his long speech against him, “is like Naaman the Syrian; a great man, but a leper.”[*]

We shall not enter into a detail of this matter, which at present seems to admit of little controversy. It suffices to say, that after a long trial, and the examination of above a hundred and fifty witnesses, the commons found so little likelihood of obtaining a judicial sentence against Laud, that they were obliged to have recourse to their legislative authority, and to pass an ordinance for taking away the life of this aged prelate. Notwithstanding the low condition into which the house of peers was fallen, there appeared some intention of rejecting this ordinance; and the popular leaders were again obliged to apply to the multitude, and to extinguish, by threats of new tumults, the small remains of liberty possessed by the upper house. Seven peers alone voted in this important question. The rest, either from shame or fear, took care to absent themselves.[*]

Laud, who had behaved during his trial with spirit and vigor of genius, sunk not under the horrors of his execution but though he had usually professed himself apprehensive of a violent death, he found all his fears to be dissipated before that superior courage by which he was animated. “No one,” said he, “can be more willing to send me out of life, than I am desirous to go,” Even upon the scaffold, and during the intervals of his prayers, he was harassed and molested by Sir John Clotworthy, a zealot of the reigning sect, and a great leader in the lower house: this was the time he chose for examining the principles of the dying primate, and trepanning him into a confession, that he trusted for his salvation to the merits of good works, not to the death of the Redeemer.[*] Having extricated himself from these theological toils, the archbishop laid his head on the block, and it was severed from the body at one blow.[**] Those religious opinions for which he suffered, contributed, no doubt, to the courage and constancy of his end. Sincere he undoubtedly was, and, however misguided, actuated by pious motives in all his pursuits; and it is to be regretted that a man of such spirit, who conducted his enterprises with so much warmth and industry, had not entertained more enlarged views, and embraced principles more favorable to the general happiness of society.

The great and important advantage which the party gained by Strafford’s death, may in some degree palliate the iniquity of the sentence pronounced against him: but the execution of this old, infirm prelate, who had so long remained an inoffensive prisoner, can be ascribed to nothing but vengeance and bigotry in those severe religionists by whom the parliament was entirely governed. That he deserved a better fate was not questioned by any reasonable man: the degree of his merit in other respects was disputed. Some accused him of recommending slavish doctrines, of promoting persecution, and of encouraging superstition; while others thought that his conduct in these three particulars would admit of apology and extenuation.

That the letter of the law, as much as the most flaming court sermon, inculcates passive obedience, is apparent; and though the spirit of a limited government seems to require, in extraordinary cases, some mitigation of so rigorous a doctrine, it must be confessed, that the presiding genius of the English constitution had rendered a mistake in this particular very natural and excusable. To inflict death, at least, on those who depart from the exact line of truth in these nice questions, so far from being favorable to national liberty, savors strongly of the spirit of tyranny and proscription.

Toleration had hitherto been so little the principle of any Christian sect, that even the Catholics, the remnant of the religion professed by their forefathers, could not obtain from the English the least indulgence. This very house of commons, in their famous remonstrance, took care to justify themselves, as from the highest imputation, from any intention to relax the golden reins of discipline, as they called them, or to grant any toleration;[*] and the enemies of the church were so fair from the beginning, as not to lay claim to liberty of conscience, which they called a toleration for soul-murder. They openly challenged the superiority, and even menaced the established church with that persecution which they afterwards exercised against her with such severity. And if the question be considered in the view of policy, though a sect, already formed and advanced, may, with good reason, demand a toleration, what title had the Puritans to this indulgence, who were just on the point of separation from the church, and whom, it might be hoped, some wholesome and legal severities would still retain in obedience?[**] 15

Whatever ridicule, to a philosophical mind, may be thrown on pious ceremonies, it must be confessed that, during a very religious age, no institutions can be more advantageous to the rude multitude, and tend more to mollify that fierce and gloomy spirit of devotion to which they are subject. Even the English church, though it had retained a share of Popish ceremonies, may justly be thought too naked and unadorned, and still to approach too near the abstract and spiritual religion of the Puritans. Laud and his associates, by reviving a few primitive institutions of this nature, corrected the error of the first reformers, and presented to the affrightened and astonished mind some sensible, exterior observances, which might occupy it during its religious exercises, and abate the violence of its disappointed efforts. The thought, no longer bent on that divine and mysterious essence, so superior to the narrow capacities of mankind, was able, by means of the new model of devotion, to relax itself in the contemplation of pictures, postures, vestments, buildings; and all the fine arts which minister to religion, thereby received additional encouragement. The primate, it is true, conducted this scheme, not with the enlarged sentiments and cool reflection of a legislator, but with the intemperate zeal of a sectary; and by over looking the circumstances of the times, served rather to inflame that religious fury which he meant to repress. But this blemish is more to be regarded as a general imputation on the whole age, than any particular failing of Laud’s; and it is sufficient for his vindication to observe, that his errors were the most excusable of all those which prevailed during that zealous period.