The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (418 page)

Intelligence being daily brought to the king of menaces thrown out by the agitators; he began to think of retiring from Hampton-Court, and of putting himself in some place of safety. The guards were doubled upon him: The promiscuous concourse of people restrained: A more jealous care exerted in attending his person: All, under colour of protecting him from danger; but really with a view of making him uneasy in his present situation. These artifices soon produced the intended effect. Charles, who was naturally apt to be swayed by counsel, and who had not then access to any good counsel, took suddenly a resolution of withdrawing himself, though without any concerted, at least, any rational scheme, for the future disposal of his person.

Attended only by Sir John Berkeley, Ashburnham, and Leg, he

11th Nov.

privately left Hampton-Court; and his escape was not discovered, till near an hour after; when those, who entered his chamber, found on the table some letters directed to the parliament, to the general, and to the officer, who had attended him.
g
All night, he travelled through the forest, and arrived next day at Tichfield, a seat of the earl of Southampton’s, where the countess dowager resided, as woman of honour, to whom, the king knew, he might safely entrust his person. Before he arrived at this place, he had gone to the sea-coast; and expressed great anxiety, that a ship, which he seemed to look for, had not arrived; and thence, Berkeley and Leg, who were not in the secret, conjectured, that his intention was to transport himself beyond sea.

The king could not hope to remain long concealed at Tichfield: King flies to the isle

What measure should next be embraced, was the question. In the of Wight.

neighbourhood lay the isle of Wight, of which Hammond was

governor. This man was entirely dependent on Cromwel. At his recommendation he had married a daughter of the famous Hampden, who, during his life-time, had been an intimate friend of Cromwel’s, and whose memory was ever respected by him.

PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

333

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

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

These circumstances were very unfavourable: Yet because the governor was nephew to Dr. Hammond, the king’s favourite chaplain, and had acquired a good character in the army, it was thought proper to have recourse to him, in the present exigence, when no other rational expedient could be thought of. Ashburnham and Berkeley were dispatched to the island. They had orders not to inform Hammond of the place, where the king was concealed, till they had first obtained a promise from him not to deliver up his majesty, though the parliament and army should require him; but to restore him to his liberty, if he could not protect him. This promise, it is evident; would have been a very slender security: Yet even without exacting it, Ashburnham, imprudently, if not treacherously, brought Hammond to Tichfield; and the king was obliged to put himself in his hands, and to attend him to Carisbroke-castle in the isle of Wight, where, though received with great demonstrations of respect and duty, he was in reality a prisoner.

Lord Clarendonh
is positive, that the king, when he fled from Hampton-Court, had no intention of going to this island; and indeed all the circumstances of that historian’s narrative, which we have here followed, strongly favour this opinion. But there remains a letter of Charles’s to the earl of Laneric, secretary of Scotland; in which he plainly intimates, that that measure was voluntarily embraced, and even insinuates, that, if he had thought proper, he might have been in Jersey or any other place of

safety.NOTE [II]
Perhaps, he still confided in the promises of the generals; and flattered himself, that, if he were removed from the fury of the agitators, by which his life was immediately threatened, they would execute what they had so often promised in his favour.

Whatever may be the truth in this matter; for it is impossible fully to ascertain the truth; Charles never took a weaker step, nor one more agreeable to Cromwel and all his enemies. He was now lodged in a place, removed from his partizans, at the disposal of the army, whence it would be very difficult to deliver him, either by force or artifice. And though it was always in the power of Cromwel, whenever he pleased, to have sent him thither; yet such a measure, without the king’s consent, would have been very invidious, if not attended with some danger. That the king should voluntarily throw himself into the snare, and thereby gratify his implacable persecutors, was to them an incident peculiarly fortunate, and proved in the issue very fatal to him.

Cromwel, being now entirely master of the parliament, and free from all anxiety, with regard to the custody of the king’s person, applied himself seriously to quell those disorders in the army, which he himself had so artfully raised, and so successfully employed, against both king and parliament. In order to engage the troops into a rebellion against their masters, he had encouraged an arrogant spirit among the inferior officers and private men; and the camp, in many respects, carried more the appearance of civil liberty than of military obedience. The troops themselves were formed into a kind of republic; and the plans of imaginary republics, for the settlement of the state, were, every day, the topics of conversation among these armed legislators. Royalty it was agreed to abolish: Nobility must be set aside: Even all ranks of men be levelled; and an universal equality of property, as well as of power, be introduced among the citizens. The saints, they said, were the salt of the earth: An PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

334

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

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

entire parity had place among the elect: And, by the same rule, that the apostles were exalted from the most ignoble professions, the meanest sentinel, if enlightened by the spirit, was entitled to equal regard with the greatest commander. In order to wean the soldiers from these licentious maxims, Cromwel had issued orders for discontinuing the meetings of the agitators; and he pretended to pay entire obedience to the parliament, whom, being now fully reduced to subjection, he purposed to make, for the future, the instruments of his authority. But the
Levellers,
for so that party in the army was called, having experienced the sweets of dominion, would not so easily be deprived of it. They secretly continued their meetings: They asserted, that their officers, as much as any part of the church or state, needed reformation: Several regiments joined in seditious remonstrances and petitions:
k
Separate rendevouses were concerted: And every thing tended to anarchy and confusion. But this distemper was soon cured by the rough, but dextrous hand of Cromwel. He chose the opportunity of a review, that he might display the greater boldness, and spread the terror the wider. He seized the ringleaders before their companions: Held in the field a council of war: Shot one mutineer instantly: And struck such dread into the rest, that they presently threw down the symbols of sedition, which they had displayed, and thenceforth returned to their wonted discipline and obedience.
l

Cromwel had great deference for the counsels of Ireton; a man, who, having grafted the soldier on the lawyer, the statesman on the saint, had adopted such principles as were fitted to introduce the severest tyranny, while they seemed to encourage the most unbounded licence, in human society. Fierce in his nature, though probably sincere in his intentions; he purposed by arbitrary power to establish liberty, and, in prosecution of his imagined religious purposes, he thought himself dispensed from all the ordinary rules of morality, by which inferior mortals must allow themselves to be governed.

From his suggestion, Cromwel secretly called at Windsor a council of the chief officers, in order to deliberate concerning the settlement of the nation, and the future

disposal of the king’s person.m
In this conference, which commenced with devout prayers, poured forth by Cromwel himself and other inspired persons (for the officers of this army received inspiration with their commission,) was first opened the daring and unheard-of counsel, of bringing the king to justice, and of punishing, by a judicial sentence, their sovereign for his pretended tyranny and mal-administration. While Charles lived, even though restrained to the closest prison, conspiracies, they knew, and insurrections would never be wanting, in favour of a prince, who was so extremely revered and beloved by his own party, and whom the nation in general began to regard with great affection and compassion. To murder him privately was exposed to the imputation of injustice and cruelty, aggravated by the baseness of such a crime; and every odious epithet of
Traitor
and
Assassin
would, by the general voice of mankind, be undisputably ascribed to the actors in such a villany. Some unexpected procedure must be attempted, which would astonish the world by its novelty, would bear the semblance of justice, and would cover its barbarity by the audaciousness of the enterprize. Striking in with the fanatical notions of the entire equality of mankind, it would ensure the devoted obedience of the army, and serve as a general engagement against the royal family, whom, by their open and united deed, they would so heinously affront and injure.
n

PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

335

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

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

This measure, therefore, being secretly resolved on, it was requisite, by degrees, to make the parliament adopt it, and to conduct them from violence to violence; till this last act of atrocious iniquity should seem, in a manner, wholly inevitable. The king, in order to remove those fears and jealousies, which were perpetually pleaded as reasons for every invasion of the constitution, had offered, by a message, sent from Carisbroke-castle, to resign, during his own life, the power of the militia and the nomination to all the great offices; provided, that, after his demise, these prerogatives

should revert to the crown.o
But the parliament acted entirely as victors and enemies; and, in all their transactions with him, payed no longer any regard to equity or reason.

At the instigation of the independents and army, they neglected this offer, and framed four proposals, which they sent him as preliminaries; and, before they would deign to treat, they demanded his positive assent to all of them. By one, he was required to invest the parliament with the military power for twenty years, together with an authority to levy whatever money should be necessary for exercising it: And even after the twenty years should be elapsed, they reserved a right of resuming the same authority, whenever they should declare the safety of the kingdom to require it. By the second, he was to recall all his proclamations and declarations against the parliament, and acknowledge that assembly to have taken arms in their just and necessary defence. By the third, he was to annul all the acts, and void all the patents of peerage, which had passed the great seal, since it had been carried from London by lord-keeper Littleton; and at the same time, renounce for the future the power of making peers without consent of parliament. By the fourth, he gave the two houses power to adjourn as they thought proper: A demand seemingly of no great importance; but contrived by the independents, that they might be able to remove the parliament to places, where it should remain in perpetual subjection to the army.
p

The king regarded the pretension as unusual and exorbitant, that 1648.

he should make such concessions, while not secure of any

settlement; and should blindly trust his enemies for the conditions, which they were afterwards to grant him. He required, therefore, a personal treaty with the parliament, and desired, that all the terms, on both sides, should be adjusted, before any concession, on either sides, should be insisted on. The republican party in the house pretended to take fire at this answer; and openly inveighed, in violent terms, against the person and government of the king; whose name, hitherto, had commonly, in all debates, been mentioned with some degree of reverence. Ireton, seeming to speak the sense of the army, under the appellation of many thousand godly men, who had ventured their lives in defence of the parliament, said, that the king, by denying the four bills, had refused safety and protection to his people; that their obedience to him was but a reciprocal duty for his protection of them; and that, as he had failed on his part, they were freed from all obligations to allegiance, and must settle the nation, without consulting any longer so misguided a prince.
q
Cromwel, after giving an ample character of the valour, good affections, and godliness of the army, subjoined, that it was expected the parliament should guide and defend the kingdom by their own power and resolutions, and not accustom the people any longer to expect safety and government from an obstinate man, whose heart God had hardened; that those, who, at the expence of their blood, had hitherto defended the parliament from so many dangers, would still continue, with fidelity and courage, to protect them against all opposition, in this vigorous measure. “Teach them not,” added he, “by your PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

336

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

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

neglecting your own safety and that of the kingdom (in which theirs too is involved) to imagine themselves betrayed, and their interests abandoned to the rage and malice of an irreconcileable enemy, whom, for your sake, they have dared to provoke.

Beware,
(and at these words he laid his hands on his sword,)
beware, lest despair cause them to seek safety by some other means, than by adhering to you, who know

not how to consult your own safety.”r
Such arguments prevailed, though ninety-one members had still the courage to oppose.

It was voted, that no more addresses be made to the king, nor any 15th Jan.