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"These proposals did not satisfy the Puritan English, much less the Presbyterian Scots, who were joined in that treaty. They were resolved upon the abolition of Episcopacy, both root and branch; of having the militia for seven years absolutely, and afterwards to be disposed of as the King and the Houses could agree; and finally, of excercising such an unlimited power in the war of Ireland, that the King should neither be able to grant a cessation, to make a peace, nor to show mercy unto any of that people on their due submission. And from the rigour of these terms, they were not to be drawn by the King's commissioners; which rendered the whole treaty fruitless, and frustrated the expectation of all loyal subjects, who languished under the calamity of this woful war. For as the treaty cooled, so the war grew hotter; managed for the most part by the same hands, but by different heads: concerning which, we are to know, that, not long after the beginning of this everlasting parliament, the Puritan faction became subdivided into Presbyterians and Independents.* And at the

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trial and execution states: "He then prayed with a loud voice, saying [among other things] "Father, my hour is come. Thy poor creature can say, without vanity and falsehood, he hath desired to glorify thee on earth; glorify thou him now in heaven. He hath desired to bring the souls of other men to heaven; let now his soul be brought to heaven. Lord, heal the breaches of these nations: Make England and Scotland as one staff in the Lord's hand; that Ephraim may not envy Judah, nor Judah vex Ephraim; but that both may fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines. O that men of the Protestant religion, engaged in the same cause and covenant, may not delight to spill each other's blood, but engage against the common adversary of religion and liberty! God shew mercy to all who fear him. Lord, think upon our covenant-keeping brethren of the kingdom of Scotland. Keep them faithful to thee; and let not those who have invaded them overspread their land. Prevent the shedding of more christian blood, if it seem good in thine eyes. God shew mercy to thy poor servant, who is now giving up the ghost. O blessed Jesus, apply thy blood, not only for my justification unto life, but also for my comfort, for the quieting of my soul, that so I may be in the joys of heaven before 1 come to the possession of heaven."

The behaviour of these two men in the awful article of death was exceedingly dissimilar. It is not difficult to say, which of them witnessed the best and most christian confession before men, and behaved in a manner befitting such a solemn occasion. Love had stated to the court on his trial: "The Act of August 2, 1650, makes it TREASON to hold any correspondence with Scotland, or to send letters thither. Here my counsel acquaints me with my danger, because, being present when letters were read at my house, I am guilty of concealment: and therefore I lay myself at your feet for mercy.' Yet. though thus self-convicted of treason against the government under which he lived, in the settlement of which he had greatly interested himself, he could say boldly on the scaffold: 1 see men thirst after my blood, which will only hasten my happiness and their ruin. For though I am of a mean parentage, my blood is the blood of a christian, of a minister, of AN INNOCENT MAN, and of A MARTYR, and this I speak without vanity!"

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These and other circumstances, when impartially considered, will produce this conclusion-Archbishop Laud manifested in his dying moments much of the contrite and humble spirit of the publican, while Love displayed many traits of the boasting Pharisee.

In the letter of Vossius, already quoted, page 314, he proceeds to say:"But those who are opposed to the Bishops, are of different judgments on one topic. Many of them wish all the power of church-government to be

first, the Presbyterians carried all before them both in camp and council: But growing jealous at the last of the Earl of Essex, whose late miscarriage in the West was looked on as a plot to betray his army, they suffered him to be wormed out of his commission; and gave the chief command of all to Sir Thomas Fairfax, with whose good services and affections they were well acquainted: To him they joined Lieutenant General Oliver Cromwell, who from a private Captain had obtained to be Lieutenant to the Earl of Manchester in the associated Counties, as they commonly called them; and having done good service in the battle of Marston-moor, was thought the fittest man to conduct their forces. And on the other side, the Earl of Brentford, (but better known by the name of General Ruthven,) who had commanded the King's army since the fight at Edge-hill, was outed of his place by a Court-contrivement, and that command conferred upon Prince Rupert, the King's sister's son, not long before made Duke of Cumberland and Earl of Holderness.

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"By these new Generals, the fortune of the war, and consequently the fate of the kingdom which depended on it, came to be decided. And at the first, the King seemed to have much the better by the taking of Leicester; though afterwards it turned to his disadvantage: for many of the soldiers, being loaded with the spoil of the place, withdrew themselves for the disposing of their booty, and came not back unto the army, vested in a Presbyterian Assembly. But the rest of them declare, that such a yoke is more grievous than that of the Bishops: They contend, therefore, that such power must be committed to each pastor separately, that he may teach the people and govern them according to the word of God. The latter are called INDEPENDENTS, to distinguish them from the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians, as they style themselves. Pym, whose influence in Parliament is very great, is said to be of the same sentiments as the Presbyterians. But many persons who seem to agree with him on other points, oppose him in this: And it is the opinion of multitudes, that, though these two parties may effect a double triumph, in the destruction of the whole of the king's authority and in the abolition of Episcopacy, yet in a short time they will be completely at variance with each other; because multitudes entertain no less antipathy to the power of the Presbytery than to that of the Bishops."

The Independents displayed this very hatred of Presbyterianism, before the Act of Uniformity was passed at the Restoration, as Clarendon informs us in his Life: "It is very true, from the time of his majesty's coming into England, he had not been reserved in the admission of those who had been his greatest enemies, to his presence.-The PRESBYTERIAN MINISTERS he received with grace, and did believe that he should work upon them by persuasions, having been well acquainted with their common arguments by the conversation he had had in Scotland, and was very able to confute them. -The INDEPENDENTS had as free access, both that he might hinder any conjunction between the other factions, and because they seemed wholly to depend upon his majesty's will and pleasure without resorting to the Parliament, in which they had no confidence; and had rather that EPISCOPACY should flourish again, than that the PRESBYTERIANS should govern.-The King had always admitted the QUAKERS for his divertisement and mirth; because he thought, that of all the factious they were the most innocent, and had least of malice in their natures against his person and his government."

till it was too late. News also came, that Fairfax with his army had laid siege to Oxon, which moved the King to return back as far as Daventry, there to expect the re-assembling of his scattered companies. Which happening as Fairfax had desired, he marched hastily after him, with an intent to give him battle on the first opportunity: In which he was confirmed by two great advantages; first, by the seasonable coming of Cromwell with a fresh body of horse, which reached him not until the evening before the fight: and secondly, by the intercepting of some letters sent from General Goring, in which his Majesty was advised to decline all occasion of battle, till he could come up to him with his Western forces. This hastened the design. of fighting in the adverse party, who fall upon the King's army in the fields near Naisby, (till that time an obscure village,) in Northamptonshire: on Saturday, the 19th of June, the battles joined; and at first his Majesty had the better of it, and might have had so at the last, if Prince Rupert, having routed one wing of the enemy's horse, had not been so intent upon the chase of the flying enemy, that he left his foot open to the other wing; who, pressing hotly on them, put them to an absolute rout, and made themselves masters of his camp, carriage, and cannon; and, amongst other things, of his Majesty's cabinet: In which they found many of his letters, most of them written to the Queen: which afterwards were published by command of the Houses, to their great dishonour. For whereas the Athenians, on the like success, had intercepted a packet of letters from Philip King of Macedon, their most bitter enemy, unto several friends, they met with one amongst the rest to the Queen Olympias; the rest being all broken open before the council, that they might be advertised of the enemy's purposes, the letter to the Queen was returned untouched; the whole Senate thinking it a shameful and dishonest act to pry into the conjugal secrets betwixt man and wife.*

The following quotation from CLARENDON'S Life, though highly honourable to the character of the King as a good husband, is derogatory to him as the Supreme Governour of a free nation, and affords a good clue to many of the misfortunes which befel his cause under this system of favouritism and consequent mismanagement. From such disclosures as these, we must form a high opinion of the loyalty and devotedness of those excellent men who, while they frequently were themselves sufferers from this unrighteous system of government, adhered with invincible integrity to their liege Lord and his forlorn hopes to the very close of his unsuccessful enterprizes.

"The King's affection to the Queen was of a very extraordinary alloy; a composition of conscience, and love, and generosity, and gratitude, and all those noble affections which raise the passion to the greatest height: insomuch as he saw with her eyes, and determined by her judgment. And did not only pay her this adoration, but desired that all men should know that he was swayed by her : which was not good for either of them. The Queen was a lady of great beauty, excellent wit and humour, and made him a just return of noblest affections; so that they were the true idea of conjugal affection, in the age in which they lived. When she was admitted to the knowledge and participation of the most secret affairs, (from which she had been

"This miserable blow was followed by the surrendry of Bristol, the storming of Bridgwater, the surprise of Hereford, and, at the end of winter, with the loss of Chester. During which time the King moved up and down with a running army, but with such ill fortune as most commonly attends a declining side. Tired with repulse upon repulse, and having lost the small remainder of his forces near Stow-on-the-Wold, he puts himself, in the beginning of May, into the hands of the Scots commissioners, residing then at Southwell in the County of Nottingham, a manor-house belonging to the See of York. For the Scots having mastered the northern parts, in the year 1644, spent the next year in harrassing the country, even as far as Hereford; which they besieged for a time, and perhaps had carried it, if they had not been called back by the letters of some special friends, to take care of Scotland, then almost reduced to the King's obedience, by the noble Marquis of Montrose. On which advertisement they depart from Hereford, face Worcester, and so marched northward: from whence they presently dispatch Col. David Lesly, with six thousand horse; and with their foot employed themselves in the siege of Newark; which brought down their commissioners to Southwell,

carefully restrained by the Duke of Buckingham, whilst he lived,) she took delight in the examining and discussing them, and from thence in making judgment of them; in which her passions were always strong.

She had felt so much pain in knowing nothing and meddling with nothing, during the time of that great favourite, that now she took pleasure in nothing but knowing all things, and disposing all things; and thought it but just, that she should dispose of all favours and preferments, as he had done; at least, that nothing of that kind might be done, without her privity: Not considering, that the universal prejudice that great man had undergone, was not with reference to his person but his power; and that the same power would be equally obnoxious to murmur and complaint, if it resided in any other person than the King himself. And she so far concurred with the King's inclination, that she did not more desire to be possessed of this unlimited power, than that all the world should take notice that she was the entire mistress of it: Which in truth (what other unhappy circumstances soever concurred in the mischief) was the foundation upon which the first and the utmost prejudices to the king and his government were raised and prosecuted. And it was her Majesty's and the kingdom's misfortune, that she had not any person about her who had either ability or affection to inform and advise her of the temper of the kingdom, or humour of the people, or who thought either worth the caring for.

"When the disturbances grew so rude, as to interrupt this harmony, and the Queen's fears, and indisposition which proceeded from those fears, disposed her to leave the kingdom, which the King, to comply with her, consented to, (and if that fear had not been predominant in her, her jealousy and apprehension that the King would, at some time, be prevailed with to yield to some unreasonable conditions, would have dissuaded her from that voyage); to make all things therefore as sure as might be, that her absence should not be attended with any such inconvenience, his Majesty made a solemn promise to her at parting, that he would receive no person into any favour or trust, who had disserved him without her privity and consent; and that, as she had undergone so many reproaches and calumnies at the entrance into the war, so he would never make any peace, but by her interposition and mediation, that the kingdom might receive that blessing only from her."

before remembered. From thence the King is hurried in posthaste to the town of Newcastle, which they looked on as their strongest hold. And being now desirous to make even with their masters, to receive the wages of their iniquity, and being desirous to get home in safety with that spoil and plunder which they had gotten in their marching and re-marching betwixt the Tweed and Hereford, they prest the King to fling up all the towns and castles which remained in his power, or else they durst not promise to continue him under their protection.

"This turn seemed strange unto the King; who had not put himself into the power of the Scots, had he not been assured before-hand by the French Ambassador, of more courteous usage; to whom the Scots commissioners had engaged themselves, not only to receive his person into their protection, but all those also which repaired unto him, as the King signified by his letters to the Marquis of Ormond. But having got him into their power, they forget those promises, and bring him under the necessity of writing to the Marquisses of Montrose and Ormond to discharge their soldiers; and to his governours of towns in England, to give up their garrisons. But then, to make him some amends, they give him some faint hopes of suffering him to bestow a visit on his realm of Scotland, (his ancient and native kingdom, as he commonly called it,) there to expect the bettering of his condition in the changes of time. But the Scots hearing of his purpose, and having leg ago cast off the yoke of subjection, voted against his coming, in a full assembly; so that we may affirm of him, as the Scripture doth of our Saviour Christ, viz. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. (John i. 2.) The like resolution was taken also by the commissioners of that nation, and the chief leaders of their army, who had contracted with the two houses of Parliament, and for the sum of two hundred thousand pounds in ready money, sold and betrayed him into the hands of his enemies, as certainly they would have done the Lord Christ himself for half the money, if he had bowed the Heavens, and come down to visit them. Being delivered over unto such commissioners as were sent by the Houses to receive him, he was by them conducted on the third of February, to his house of Holdenby, not far from the good town of Northampton ; where

After applying these remarks to the king's conduct respecting the conclusion of the Oxford treaty, which failed as much through this weakness in his Majesty, as through the indirect management of some of the Parliamentary Commissioners, the noble historian proceeds to state: "About the time that the treaty began, the Queen lauded in the North: And she resolved, with a good quantity of ammunition and arms, to make what haste she could to the King; having at her first landing expressed by a letter to his Majesty, her apprehension of an ill peace by that treaty; and declared, that she would never live in England, if she might not have a guard for the security of her person. Which letter came accidentally afterwards into the hands of the Parliament, of which they made use to the Queen's disadvantage."

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