they gave up his cause as desperate; and at length consented to the reiterated demands of the parliament of England that he should be delivered up to them. After receiving a large sum of money for the services they had rendered to the general cause,* they handed Charles over to the parliamentary commissioners, and, according to stipulation, withdrew their army from the English territory. The king was now nominally in the possession of the parliament of England, by whose authority he was conveyed in safe custody to Holmby, near Northampton.

This event occurred on the 13th of February, 1647. Before this period, the presbyterians had pressed forward their measures for the establishment of their own polity and worship, and had procured many enactments prejudicial to the royalists and sectaries.

about much of the mischief that led to the embroilment of the two kingdoms. See in particular Letters, 135, 136, 147, 150, 152, 153, 155. We learn from Letter 150, that Henderson's controversy with Charles on Episcopacy was a mere sham-" merely politic, and a pretence to gain time."

* Respecting this money, the following particulars from Baillie's letter to Mr. George Young, (167) of Dec. 1st, are worth noting. "The £200,000 was all told on Friday last. All this day our commissioners have been agreeing upon the way of its receiving, and the going home of our army. We have had sore labour these weeks by gone, to put on many things in the Houses, Assembly, and City, much ado to get the great sum. It was my dear friend Dr. Burges' singular invention, that all who contribute to this sum, should have as much of his old debt, with all the annual rents counted to him, and for all, make a good pennyworth of the bishop's lands; so the bargain being exceeding advantageous, the strife was who should come in with his money soonest. By this means we got the bishop's lands on our back without any grudge, and in a way that no skill will get them back again." This is a revelation not to be passed over.

It would appear, that while the negotiations between Charles and the Scotch were pending, they were emboldened to this line of precedure, in the confident hope of securing the king on their own terms. They now went a step further, and prepared for their last stroke of policy that by which all their long cherished aims would be accomplished-by seeking to disband the army of the parliament. The Scotch army had retired, or was retiring; and if the parliamentary forces could be got rid of in the same easy manner, they doubted not to be able to complete all their plans. With the city, the militia, and a fluctuating majority of the House of Commons on their side, they were assured of ultimate success.

But in making these calculations, the presbyterians proved their own want of foresight. Their zeal seemed to rob them of all common sagacity. A conciliatory conduct towards the Independents, who were now a powerful party in the country, as well as in the army, and whose leading men were as sensitive to wrong as they were ready to repel it, was the only course dictated by common prudence. Of this prudence they were utterly destitute. Imagining themselves safe, because the forces of the royalists had been ruined, they took the most direct steps they could to provoke that very power by which the nation was brought into its present state. Overrating the importance really attached to the decisions of parliament in that crisis, they procured ordinances for the disbanding of the army, and with great haste proceeded to carry them into execution. And now the conflict between the army and the parliament commenced. It is scarcely necessary to state that the army prevailed. Calm and wary in every passage of difficulty

or of danger; bold, decided, energetic, whenever the opportunity of furthering their plans presented itself; its chiefs were never foiled in any of their undertakings. Instead of disbanding,* it formed itself into a kind of military republic. Every question respecting its proceedings was put to the vote. Each regiment had its representatives, known by the name of adjutators, who were the medium of communication between the principal officers and the troops. Agreed, or nearly so, in every step which they took, their movements were always decided and effectual. Never was such another army known. Numbering in all about 22,000 men, it was of one mind and soul. Like an eagle, it descended with fell swoop on its quarry. Like a thunder cloud, it discharged its vengeance in one decisive effort on the foe. There was no possibility of evading it; there was no resisting its will. Even Cromwell himself knew and felt this, and was content to guide and control when he could not compel.

Before narrating the steps by which the army advanced to supreme power, it may be of service to take a correct view of the relation it sustained towards the parties into which the nation was divided, and in particular of that by which it was nominally governed. In order to this, it is necessary to divest our minds of all those notions which attach to ordinary armies, fed and paid on a purely mercenary principle. As already stated, the army of the commonwealth was neither collected nor organized on this principle. It was

*It may here be stated, that the corps of Massey, known as the Army of the West, the only portion of the general army inclined to presbyterianism, was disbanded, in compliance with the orders of parliament, in October, 1646 Thus the presbyterians played the game of their adversaries.

called into being by a great national emergency. The liberties of the country, civil and religious, were in peril. At the instigation, and under the sanction of parliament, the several members composing this army-patriotic, enlightened, and for the most part religious men-flocked together from all quarters, relinquishing all the comforts of private life and prepared to spend their energies and shed their blood in the defence of the people of England. It was the cause of the patriot, not the pay or profession of the soldier, that induced them to enlist. While their fellow countrymen followed their rural or mercantile avocations in peace, they were passing through all the stages of severe military discipline, or hazarding their lives on the field of battle. Was all this self-denial and superior devotement to their country's interests to be requited by political disfranchisement? or was the circumstance of their entering into a military organization to incapacitate them for forming an opinion respecting the country's wants, and to rob them of their previous rights as British subjects? They thought not. Neither could they understand how their successful efforts against one national foe could be construed into a reason for their succumbing to such as might yet remain. They determined, therefore, before they disbanded, to finish the work for which they had sacrificed so much; and having triumphed so far, they thought it not impossible that they might be victorious to the end.*

*"The question is not to be viewed as between a constitutional parliament, and a usurping army, but as between the presbyterian majority on the one side, and the Independent minority supported by the army on the other; in short, as between two great political parties, who are to be estimated not by words or names, but by their respective measures and principles."-Mackintosh's History of England, vi. 37.

That such were the views of the army respecting its own "case," may be gathered from the various “remonstrances," "appeals," and "manifestoes," it put forth from time to time. The following, for example, occurs in a letter addressed to the lord mayor, aldermen, and common council of the City of London, in June, 1647, signed by Fairfax, Cromwell, and eleven superior officers. "As for the thing we insist upon as Englishmen and surely our being soldiers hath not stript us of that interest, although our malicious enemies would have it so we desire a settlement of the peace of the kingdom and of the liberties of the subject, according to the votes and declarations of parliament, which, before we took arms, were, by the parliament, used as arguments and inducements to invite us and divers of our dear friends out; some of whom have lost their lives in this war. Which being now, by God's blessing, finished-we think we have as much right to demand, and desire to see, a happy settlement, as we have to our money and to the other common interests of soldiers which we have insisted upon. We find also the ingenuous and honest people, in almost all parts of the kingdom where we come, full of the sense of ruin and misery, if the army should be disbanded before the peace of the kingdom, and those other things before mentioned, have a full and perfect settlement. We seek the good of all. And we shall wait here, or remove to a farther distance to abide there, if once we be assured that a speedy settlement of things is in hand—until it be accomplished."*

The following, from a "Representation" addressed to the parliamentary commissioners a few days after * Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, by T. Carlyle, vol. 1. pp. 298, 299.