The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (408 page)

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 5

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 ensuring 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, for ever, 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 intreated them, in vindication of their own honour, 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 favour 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.

Cromwel 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 enterprize 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.

PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

292

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/792

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 5

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 honour, 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 connexion 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 entrusted 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.
f

Notwithstanding these reasonings, a committee was chosen to

Self-denying

frame what was called the
Self–denying ordinance,
by which the ordinance.

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.g
The ordinance, therefore, having passed both houses, Essex, Warwic, 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.

It was agreed to recruit the army to 22,000 men; and Sir Thomas 1645.

Fairfax was appointed general.
h
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 encreased between the parties.
i

Cromwel, 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 subtilty, 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 PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

293

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/792

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 5

horse, to relieve Taunton, besieged by the royalists. His absence being remarked, orders were dispatched 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 Cromwel, 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 Cromwel to serve that campaign.k
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 Cromwel.

Fairfax was a person equally eminent for courage and for

Fairfax.

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 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.

Cromwel, by whose sagacity and insinuation Fairfax was entirely Cromwel.

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 enterprizing 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, Treaty of Uxbridge.

the negociations for peace were likewise carried on, though with small hopes of success. The king having sent two messages, one from Evesham,
l

another from Tavistoke,m
desiring a treaty, the parliament dispatched commissioners to Oxford, with proposals, as high as if they had obtained a compleat victory.
n
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, enflamed with the highest animosity against them, and who, were they possessed of PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

294

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/792

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 5

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.o
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.p
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.q
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 endeavoured 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 acknowledgement 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 30th Jan.

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.
r
It was soon found impracticable to come to any agreement with regard to any of these articles.

In the summer 1643, while the negociations were carried on with Scotland, the parliament had summoned an assembly at Westminster, consisting of 121 divines and 30 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 re-admission. All these measures showed little spirit of accommodation in the parliament; and the king’s commissioners were not surprized to find the establishment of presbytery and the directory positively demanded, together with the subscription of the covenant, both by the king and kingdom.
s