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CHAPTER XVI.

TREATY OF UXBRIDGE.

THREE several times, during the western campaign of 1644, we have seen the king offering to open negociations for a peace. That he was now sincerely desirous of peace, if that "blessing," as he emphatically termed it, could have been obtained on terms compatible with his conscientious views of duty and honour, no unprejudiced reader of the history of the time can doubt; that he continued to press the subject upon the attention of the parliament from any serious expectation of being able, by such means, to put a close to the devastating contest, is a point more questionable. The parliament had gone too far to be safe, as individuals, from the vengeance of the violated laws, unless they could find means to restrain the sovereign executive within limits, to which neither the king's conscience nor his just pride would allow him to submit. Nevertheless, though he had little reason to hope for any good from a negociation, it became not the father of his people to turn a deaf ear to the cry which now rose on all sides-from hut and castle, from the lord and the peasant alike-for a termination to be put to the useless calamities of that protracted, bloody, and unnatural war.

Sensible of the same pressure from public feeling, the weight of which, on this point, now began to lie chiefly upon their side; hoping, however, to be able more readily afterwards to throw the blame upon the king, in the estimation of the multitude, who were less capable of judging what either party might or might not concede, than of their apparent willingness to enter on a treaty-the parliament also at length yielded. From time to time, ever since the transmission of the king's message after the discomfiture of Essex, we meet, in the records of their proceedings, with motions made and votes passed to consider of propositions for a treaty. Propositions on their part were at length framed, and commissioners (two from the Lords, four from the Commons, and three for Scotland), were named, to carry them to the king. They left London on the 20th of November. Whitelocke, who was one of them, has left an amusing account of their journey. At Wallingford, where they at first expected to find the king, they apprehended some risk from the rude loyalty of the governor, with whom they dined; again, on their arrival at Oxford, the insolence of some of Charles's officers moved the commissioners' indignation. By the populace they seem to have been regarded with as little favour: "As we passed along the streets," says the memorialist, "the rude multitude, the people-part of that people of England for whom we underwent so many hazards of our lives, and fortunes, to preserve them in their rights and liberties, and from slavery and popery,-reviled us with the names of traitors, rogues, and rebels, and the like, and threw stones and dirt into our coaches a great encouragement and reward for our service for them!"

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The reception of the commissioners by the king himself seems to have been tolerably satisfactory, except to the three who appeared for Scotland. That to them he "was less civil than to their brethren," cannot excite surprise; for not only had the rebellion, which now wasted the realm, first broken out among the Scots, but that people had, likewise, by means of the covenant, and the intrigues of their commissioners in London, gained a degree of influence which they unrelentingly employed for his destruction. The very propositions now submitted to him, had derived no small part of their harshness from suggestions made north of the Tweed, to which the authorities at Westminster yielded a slavish consent.

It was Sunday, when the commissioners were admitted to the royal presence, and presented the propositions. They were read by the Earl of Denbigh. At the reading of the names of those persons whom the parliament proposed to be excepted from pardonwhich the earl pronounced "with great courage and temper,”—the Princes Rupert and Maurice, hearing their names among the number, "fell into a laughter;" at which the king seemed displeased, and desired them to be quiet. "Have you power," said he, addressing the commissioners, "to treat?" "No," they replied; "our commission is merely to receive your majesty's answer in writing." "Then," rejoined the king, "a letter-carrier would have done as well." "I suppose your majesty," retorted Lord Denbigh, "looks upon us as persons of another condition than letter-carriers?" "I know your condition," was the reply; "but I mean, that your commission gives you power to do no more than a letter-carrier might have done." This hasty remark appears afterwards to have been regretted on all sides.

While the commissioners where waiting in the town for the royal answer, Lord Lindsey, who was confined by his wounds, invited Whitelocke, and Hollis, two of their number, to visit him. Presently after their arrival, the King, Prince Rupert, and several other persons of high rank, entered; when his majesty began an earnest conversation with Whitelocke and Hollis, on the business of their mission. In reply to his repeated request, that they would advise him what answer it were best to return to the parliament's message, they expressed their conviction that his appearance in person at Westminster, would, more than anything else, promote the attainment of peace. By Charles's desire they then withdrew into a private room, where Whitelocke wrote down what both agreed to recommend to the king as the substance of his answer. The paper, written in a disguised hand, and without a signature, was left on the table; "and the king went in, and took it, and then with much favour and civility bid us farewell." This singular transaction was kept secret by the two commissioners, from their colleagues, and can only be excused as springing from an earnest desire for the success of their negotiation. A charge of high treason, founded upon it, was some months afterwards brought against them in the parliament by Lord Savile, one of the lords then at Oxford with the king, who, on the failure of the treaty, went over to the rebels.

The king's letter by the commissioners contained merely a request, that a safe-conduct might be forwarded for the Duke of Lennox and the Earl of Southampton, by whom he would send his reply; and it bore no superscription. The safe-conduct was refused,

until it should be formally applied for to "the Parliament of England and Scotland assembled at Westminster." This demand the king conceded, though with reluctance; and the result of the visit of those noblemen to London was an agreement to appoint commissioners on both sides for a treaty, to be held at Uxbridge, the place selected by the parliament.

The commissioners nominated by the parliament consisted of four for the Lords, viz. the Earls of Northumberland, Pembroke, Salisbury, and Denbigh; eight for the Commons, viz. Pierrepoint, Hollis, Lord Wenman, Sir Harry Vane, St. John, Whitelocke, Crew, Prideaux; four Scotch lords, and three divines, Marshall, Vines, Cheynell, and the famous Alexander Henderson; with eighty attendants. The king's commissioners, at the head of whom were the Duke of Richmond and the Marquis of Hertford, amounted, with their retinue, to one hundred and eight persons. In this number were included, with a view to the affairs of the church, Drs. Stewart, Sheldon, Ferne, Hammond, Potter, Lany, and other learned divines. Such of the royal commissioners as had received any honours from the king, "since the great seal was carried away from the parliament," the Commons refused to acknowledge by their new titles. This they did, not so much from personal dislike to the individuals, as in defence of one of their own most remarkable acts. When, by the persuasion of Hyde, Lord Keeper Littleton had forwarded the great seal to his master at York, the houses passed a declaration, that "whatever should, from that time, pass under the great seal, should be null and void;" and shortly afterwards ordered a copy of it to be made, which they applied, in such matters transacted on their sole authority, as by law required the attestation of the great seal. To this impediment, however, Charles quickly put an end by declaring, that "he waved the matter of honour, and was content that his commissioners should treat under those titles that were admitted by the parliament." The king's commissioners were, probably without exception, most anxious for the success of the treaty. Such unanimity the opposite party were far from entertaining. A small number, principally Hollis and Whitelocke, sincerely wished for an accommodation; the majority, however, neither sought nor desired the establishment of peace; while some, in particular Vane, St. John, and Prideaux, were there expressly to prevent it, and to act as spies upon the conduct of those who might be willing to obtain it at the cost of the slightest secession from the unreasonable demands of the parliament.

We adopt, in regard to the further preparatory steps, Whitelocke's lively narrative, as the account of an eye-witness. "January 29th," writes the memorialist, "the commissioners for the treaty on both parts met at Uxbridge, and had their several quarters; those for the parliament and all their retinue on the north side of the town, and those for the king on the south side: the best inn of the one side was the rendezvous of the parliament's commissioners, and the best inn of the other side of the street was for the king's commissioners.

"The evening that we came to town several visits passed between particular commissioners of either party, who had long discourses together to the furtherance of the business of the treaty.

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"The place being within the parliament's quarters, they appointed Sir John Bennet's house, at the farther end of the town, to be fitted for the place of meeting for the treaty. The foreway into the house was appointed for the king's commissioners to come in at, and the back way for the parliament's commissioners; in the middle of the house was a fair great chamber, where they (the parliament's commissioners) caused a large table to be made, like that heretofore in the Star-chamber, almost square. The king's commissioners had one end and one side of the table for them; the other end and side were for the parliament's commissioners, and for the Scots' commissioners, to sit by themselves. Behind the chairs of the commissioners, on both sides, sat the divines and secretaries. At each end of the great chamber was a fair withdrawing room, and inner chamber; one for the king's, the other for the parliament's commissioners, to retire to and consult when they pleased."

After the settlement of some disputes about precedence, raised by the Scottish commissioners, (whom the parliament had by this time discovered to be very arrogant and troublesome coadjutors), the powers and instructions to negotiate were, on each side, delivered up to the opposite party; and on the 1st of February the business of the treaty began by the negotiators for the parliament producing the propositions with which they were entrusted. Up to this point, affairs had been conducted with something like a mutual acknowledgment of equality; as soon, however, as essentials, not forms, came to be mooted, it was found that the parliament, "though they had not yet conquered, were determined to treat only as conquerors." The momentous subjects to be settled were all ranged under three striking and popular heads-Religion; the command of the military; the truce in Ireland. Referrible to each of these were several propositions, amounting together to twenty-eight; neither from the substance nor the form of which, as already fixed by the votes of the houses, were their agents permitted in any degree to deviate. Thus all discussion of the reasonableness of the parliament's demands was precluded; nothing farther being yielded in this respect than an intimation from the commissioners, that they were ready to explain, in private, the grounds on which they held them to be reasonable and just. To crown the absurdity, they were commanded to insist that each of the three great questions was to occupy successively the term of three days, and again in rotation to be resumed, till the twenty days, already fixed for the continuance of the treaty, had expired; when, unless all the propositions had been agreed upon, the treaty was to close.

Not less magisterial was the substance of the propositions. It comprised, under the first head, the following particulars,—the abolition of the episcopal and the establishment of the presbyterian form of church-government; that the Directory should be substituted for the Book of Common Prayer; that the assembly of divines should be confirmed, and that the king himself should take the covenant; under the second, that the command of the army and navy should be vested absolutely in the parliament; under the third, that the cessation in Ireland should be declared void, and hostilities be immediately renewed. On the king's part it was replied, that he could not consent to the abolition of episcopacy, which he conscientiously believed to be essential to the existence of a church,

but that he was willing to have the episcopal authority confined within the narrow limits prescribed to it in the scheme of Archbishop Usher. Some other particulars he was likewise prepared to yield; such as, freedom of worship to nonconformists, and the payment of a sum of £100,000 by the church into the public treasury. The power of the sword, the next point in discussion, the king was persuaded to say he would resign, for the space of three years, into the hands of commissioners, half of whom should be nominated by himself, the other half by the parliament: subsequently, with strong reluctance, he enlarged the period to seven years. On the third head he was inflexible. One of the charges most frequently brought against Charles by his adversaries, and most extensively believed by the people, was that, for the purpose of attaching the Roman Catholics to his cause, he had instigated and encouraged the rebellion in Ireland; and that the armistice agreed upon in that country was not the result of necessity on his part, but a contrivance to enable him to avail himself of the services of the rebels in England. On this argument, Clarendon represents himself as speaking to the following effect before the commissioners: "He put them in mind of their (the parliament's) bringing those very troops which were levied by the royal authority for the suppression of the rebellion in Ireland, to fight against the king at Edgehill; of their having given over the prosecution of that war, or sending any supply of arms, money, or ammunition thither; and having, on the contrary, employed those magazines which were provided for that service against his majesty; in consequence of which the privy-council of Ireland had written home, that unless other means were provided for the preservation of that kingdom, they would not be able any longer to carry on the war against the rebels. That notwithstanding, it was not till the sum of £100,000, raised for that express purpose, had been sent in one entire sum into Scotland, to dispose and enable the Scots to raise an army to invade England, that the king had swerved in the least degree from the observation of the act of parliament which had been passed for reducing the insurgents. But when he saw that the parliament themselves, instead of prosecuting the end and intention of that statute, only took advantage of it for the purpose of carrying on the war against himself, he thought himself absolved before God and man if he did all he could to rescue and defend himself against their violence, by making a cessation with the rebels in Ireland, and by drawing over some regiments of his own army from thence to assist him in England; to which measure was owing the preservation of the defenceless protestants of that kingdom. Those unjustifiable proceedings of the parliament, though they had compelled the king to yield to a cessation, yet could not prevail with him to make peace with the rebels. His majesty did indeed," he continued, "admit commissioners from them to attend him with propositions for that purpose. But when he found those propositions so unreasonable that he could not in conscience consent to them, and that they were inconsistent with the security of his Protestant subjects there, he totally rejected them, and dismissed the commissioners with severe animadversions. He nevertheless gave authority to the Lord-Lieutenant and council to prolong the cessation, in the hope that the rebels might be brought to a better temper. Should it turn out otherwise, his