might, by refusal, or even by delay, be provoked to adopt the determination of excluding him from the throne. For themselves, they had given him abundant warning; to him alone would be attributable the consequences of his choice.

Charles had strong reasons of a political nature for rejecting this advice. His distrust of the presbyterians was hereditary and profound; and could he fail to bear in mind the sad confirmation, afforded in his own career, of his father's maxim, "no bishop, no king"? He still clung to the belief, that, notwithstanding the seeming unanimity of the two great factions, they would presently be divided, even on the one question that most nearly concerned himself. In believing that the royal authority was still sufficient, at the least, to adjust the balance between the presbyterian and commonwealth factions, he was, doubtless, mistaken; for with them, bare political power, not attachment or the sense of duty, was allowed any weight; and power he had none. He never ceased also to place some degree of reliance on the returning loyalty of the multitudes. It was, nevertheless, sincere regard for the religious polity of England, blended with a solemn conviction that his duty was, to risk all things for its maintenance, which chiefly dictated his answer to the propositions. "He was ready cheerfully to grant and give his assent to all such measures as should be really for the good and peace of his people, without respect to his own particular interests; but never could he consent to what was absolutely destructive to that just power, which, by the laws of God and the land, he was born to." He added, that many of the propositions were such, that their exact meaning and extent could not be ascertained otherwise than in a personal conference; for which purpose he desired to repair to his capital, as soon as he had the assurance of the two Houses and the Scotch commissioners, that he might appear there with freedom, honour, and safety.

The death of his theological opponent afforded the king no respite from controversy on the proposed surrender of the church. A correspondence with Jermyn, Colepeper, and Ashburnham, now in attendance on the queen at St. Germain's, furnished painful occupation for several successive weeks. It was an easy task for the pen of Charles— a pen which had foiled the learned Scotch divine-to sport at pleasure with the arguments of such polemics; but the pertinacity of the courtiers, in returning incessantly to the point, was proportioned to the sense they entertained of the difficulty and danger of the king's position, to their incapacity to appreciate his motives, and to the strength of their less generous reasons for desiring peace at whatever sacrifice on his part. Again and again, Charles condescended to repeat the grounds of his inflexibility. He was no less firmly convinced that episcopacy is of divine institution, than the Scots that their synodical government was so; he could not dispense with his coronation-oath, which obliged him to maintain the Church of England; he farther believed, from the experience of his father's and his own reigns, that, through the church, the presbyterians really struck at the monarchy, and that their cherished polity is essentially hostile to kingly government. "Believe it," he writes, "religion is the only firm foundation of all power. That cast loose, or depraved, no government can be stable." And, in a letter to the prince, written about this time, he lays it down as "the chief particular duty of a king to maintain the true religion." The three courtiers, however, still persevered. And,

although Charles was so little moved by their arguments, that he declared "they were not only against his conscience, but absolutely destructive to the end" of those who adduced them, "viz. the maintenance of monarchy;" although he "conjures them, as they are Christians, no more thus to torture him," assuring them, that "the more they pressed him on this subject, the more they would contribute to his ruin; yet, urged on every side with entreaty, argument, and menace, Charles's resolution at length staggered. He consulted Juxton and Duppa, bishops of London and Salisbury, whether he might lawfully "yield a compliance with the iniquity of the times," on the subject of church-government. The result was a proposition, authorized to be made privately by an agent in London, to the leaders of the presbyterian party, to allow of their church discipline for five years, and to resign the command of the militia for ten years, or even for the term of his reign, on their agreeing to the re-establishment of episcopacy, on a moderated scale, at the close of the former period. But the parties with whom he had to deal, were resolved to enforce their "bond." The Scots refused to yield any tittle of the covenant; nor would either parliament or Scots abate one iota of the propositions. Like the rest of the king's concessions, therefore, this also was regarded merely as a further indication of weakness, and set aside as unworthy of consideration.

Many months had now been consumed at Newcastle in endless discussions on the covenant and propositions; at London, in debates in parliament, and disputes between that assembly and the Scots, respecting the disposal of the refractory king, and the tacit, if not avowed, condition of his surrender. At length, towards the middle of December, the Scots' commissioners intimated to their captive what course they had determined to pursue, by laying before him a resolution of the parliament at Edinburgh, not to allow the king to enter Scotland. Charles perceived the crisis to be near, and once more vainly renewed his petition to be heard in the metropolis-a petition, he said, "which, if refused to a subject by a king, he would be thought a tyrant for it." The same day on which the vote against admitting the king into Scotland passed in the parliament at Edinburgh, also witnessed the departure from London of a numerous train of military carriages, laden with coin to the value of £200,000, the first instalment of the sum to be paid to the Scots. On Christmas-day-(a sacred festival, not now for the first time devoted by them to public business,) the Commons passed a resolution in which the Lords also concurred, that the king's house at Holdenby, in Northamptonshire, should be the place of his confinement. In the mean time, that serviceable officer, Skippon, who, with a strong force under his command, had been ordered to convey the money to the Scots, arrived at Northallerton with his valuable charge, transferred it to the care of their commissioners, and "received their acquittance." In addition to this form of acknowledgment, the commissioners presented a request, voted by the parliament at Edinburgh, that no violence should be offered to the person of the royal captive, and that no obstacle should be opposed to the legal succession in his family. The Scotch army then marched out of Newcastle, and Skippon immediately took possession of it with his troops.

On the 23rd day of January, the lords Pembroke, Denbigh, and Montague, with Sir William Armyn, and five other members of the Commons, attended by a strong escort of

horse, entered Newcastle from London, to take charge of the king. Their arrival was communicated to him by the commissioners of Scotland. "I came among you,” said Charles, "for protection, which you had already guaranteed: what is the reason that you now deny it me, by preventing my accompanying your army into Scotland?" "It is because your majesty refuses to sign the covenant and the propositions. We are therefore to deliver you to the commissioners of the parliament of England, who will conduct you to your manor of Holdenby." Charles received the English commissioners with great cheerfulness and affability, distinguishing, with special kindness, the old Earl of Pembroke, who had formerly been high in office at court, and was believed to retain still some affection for his master. The king was glad, he said, to see that the earl's advanced years had not prevented his undertaking that long and winterly journey. But the commissioners were not to be moved by courtesies from what they regarded as points of duty. Charles requested that he might now be allowed the attendance of two of his chaplains, a comfort of which he had so long been deprived: he was answered, that they had brought down with them two learned ministers, and that "the attendance of any other chaplains would not be for his majesty's benefit."

In the way to Holdenby, the people flocked about the king, with acclamations, tears, and prayers; and many diseased persons solicited and received the royal touch, In these indications of unextinguished or reviving loyalty, they received no disturbance from the troops. The army, at this time, lay at Nottingham; and as the king's cavalcade approached the gates, Fairfax came out to meet it, alighted, kissed the king's hand, and, remounting, accompanied and conversed with him through the town. "Dethronement," "commonwealth," and other such portentous words, had already been heard, like the muttering of distant thunder, in the rebel horizon. But they found no echo in the hearts of the people; no recognition in the ear of Fairfax. Whatever dark purposes might already be engendered in bosoms subsequently stained with regicidal guilt, it could not be difficult to impose on that undiscerning frankness, which Cromwell's hypocrisy sported with, even while the head of the royal victim was extended on the block. As the procession drew near the place of its destination, it was met by the noblemen and gentlemen of the county, who, with a multitude of the inferior classes, had assembled to express their duty to their sovereign, and to welcome his entrance once more beneath a royal roof. It was on the 16th of February, 1646-7, that King Charles alighted at the door of his magnificent mansion of Holdenby.

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CHAPTER XXIII.

THE KING'S FAMILY.

Ir were vain to speculate, what might have been the effect on the fortunes of the king himself, and on the future settlement of the nation, had Charles, instead of repairing to the Scots, chosen one of those other courses, which, at an earlier period, were open to him: had he, for example, sought in person to rouse the sympathy of France or Holland, or thrown himself upon the generosity of his enemies at Westminster. One other resource there was besides, which his highminded Chancellor of the Exchequer, had he been then present with his master, would have recommended. "I would rather," said Hyde, “he should have stayed in Oxford, and after defending it to the last biscuit, been taken prisoner with his honest retinue about him, and then relied upon his own virtue in imprisonment, than to have thrown himself into the arms of the Scots. Not that I imagined they could have done what every body concludes they have or will do; but that I thought it an unkingly thing to ask relief of those who had done all the mischief." Nor was this method of putting a close to the contest strange to the king's contemplations, or unsuited to his temper. He shrank, however, from the view of the extensive misery it must occasion, and probably dreaded the disgrace of being made a spectacle of captive royalty to his rebel subjects.

ance.

Fortunate for Oxford, at least, was the king's choice. The walls of that city enclosed many of those persons who were dearest to him, and who were at the same time the least fitted to endure the miseries of a protracted siege, or to contribute towards effectual resistThe Duke of York, the ladies and families of many of the nobility and gentry, numerous clergymen and learned residents in the university, were there; whose presence must have aggravated the evils, while it accelerated the advance, of the inevitable result, viz., ultimate surrender. For, though the number, experience, and bravery of the garrison, enabled them to defy assault, they were nevertheless wholly unequal to act on the offensive, against Fairfax's host; and relief in any shape from without was hopeless. The terms of the capitulation were honourable to both parties. The Duke of York was to be conducted to London, there to have fitting provision made for him by the parliament. To the princes Rupert and Maurice, liberty was given to reside six months longer in England, and then to go beyond sea. The garrison to march out with every military honour. The inhabitants to remain, if they chose, three months longer in the city, and to go where they pleased. Those whose estates were under sequestration to be admitted to compound at the rate of two years' income, and no further restraint to be placed upon them, except in London, where all persons coming from Oxford, or from any other of the king's garri

sons, were forbidden to wear or possess arms, or to be out of their lodgings after nine o'clock at night. The university, and city, to be continued in the undisturbed enjoyment of their respective privileges under the parliament. His majesty's servants to have liberty either to repair to him within one month, or to retire to his palace at Hampton Court. Some of these conditions the parliament endeavoured to recall, after they had already been agreed to by the army. But in the mean time the two princes, maintaining the accustomed impatience of their character, marched out with their retinue of cavaliers and attendants, some days before the formal surrender of the place. Having, in their passage towards Dover, diverged to Oatlands, though allowed by the articles of surrender to approach no nearer to the metropolis than a distance of twenty miles, the houses testified their displeasure in an expostulatory letter hastening their departure. After visiting their brother, the Prince Elector, then residing in England in the character of a pensioner on the parliament, they joined the queen and the Prince of Wales at St. Germain's, where Rupert accepted from the king of France an appointment to the command of all the English that were, or might be, embodied in that country.

The terms granted to such of the remaining garrisons, as unhesitatingly obeyed the king's order to submit, were little less favourable. Only Ragland was yielded without conditions. This gallant little fortress had been summoned on the 8th of June by Colonel Morgan, at the head of a force from Worcester. For some time the brave old marquess wholly disregarded the message, refusing to believe that Charles could have tacitly included Ragland in a general warrant of surrender. "Wherefore," was his answer, "I make choice (if it so please God) rather to die nobly than to live with infamy." Presently afterwards, Fairfax himself appeared before Ragland, and repeated the summons. A correspondence ensued, in which the marquess refers, in affecting terms, to the intimacy which had subsisted between himself and the family of the lord-general; and, on the 19th day of August, the venerable old nobleman was persuaded to pull down the royal standard, but not till it had previously ceased to float over any other fortress in the island. The large possessions of the marquess had already been confiscated by the parliament. He was consequently prevented from becoming, at the age of fourscore, a houseless dependent on the bounty of his enemies, only by his death, which followed immediately after his arriving in London, when the lords ordered a sum to be advanced for the expenses of his funeral.

A person not less admirable for his firm and disinterested support of the cause of legal government, fell into the parliament's hands at the surrender of Worcester. This was the famous Welsh judge, David Jenkins; round whose name radiates a renown very different from that which encircles most of the legal reputations of that age, famous for distinguished lawyers. Judge Jenkins had already been looked up to, during an entire generation, by his fellow jurists as an oracle of constitutional wisdom, and by the court and people as an upright and able administrator of the laws, when the civil war broke out. It was from no courtly temper, (for he had uniformly opposed all encroachments on the liberties of Englishmen), from no sentimental loyalty (for he was a stern man), but purely to vindicate the law, that he declared himself a foe to rebellion, by