Chapter LXIX: Act 131: , Par. 8, K. Ja. 6, and the subjects’ liberties, who ought (66)

—— Our assembly drove on to the end of the fifth week. Many, dwelling
far off and superexpended, slid away. I suspected the moderator drew
long of purpose, waiting for a letter from the parliament of England,
which came not. We hear now the House of Commons past a declaration
to us; but the Lords consented not to it. I did not love to have any
correspondence with them now, but others loved it too well. Another
motion in our committee I loved not, a letter to be written to the
king. It was fathered on Mr James Hamilton; and the drawing of it
put on him, though no commissioner. I knew there would be a heavier
load laid by us on his Majesty than was expedient to be meddled with;
also that we should not express such a sense of his unjust sufferings
as the world would expect; and so I was earnest to let all alone;
but the moderator carried it: and though the draught of that letter
came never to our committee, but at the first was taken in to the
Assembly, and some hours spent in the moderator’s publick correcting
of it, yet the thing behoved to pass, and the wording of it to go to
the commission. Many good overtures against the sins of the times
did likewise pass. One of them I was feared for. It was, first,
that all ministers conversing with malignants should be censured by
presbyteries. This would have snared many; for the notion of the
malignants now by the engagement, is extended to very many. I got it
some way qualified, but not as it will be found needful.

That which some days in the end of the assembly troubled us, was,
Mr Andrew Ramsay and Mr William Colvil’s process. Mr Andrew had,
in preaching, often fallen out in divers impertinencies, and
contradiction to his brethren: he had been oft admonished; but the
man’s weakness and age, and divers who resorted to him, permitted him
not much to amend. Not only he had spoken for the engagement; but in
prejudice of our proceedings, and Presbyterian government itself.
Much he denied; much was proven. He untimeously had fallen on an
unhappy question, The magistrates power to remit blood. The general
theses which he professed to maintain, “That the supreme magistrate,
when the safety of the commonwealth does require, may dispense with
the execution of justice against shedders of blood,” many of us
declined to meddle with; but the moderator gladly would have had the
assembly determining the negative expressly, which was eschewed; only
the man for his doctrine and carriage was suspended till the next
assembly. Mr William Colvill was referred to us only for his silence
about the engagement. The man was generally too busy to countenance
and encourage our statesmen in their way, and the chief mover of Mr
Ramsay to his course; however, he himself walked very cannily. I was
indeed offended at his malapert carriage in the commission of the
church, and for it, albeit it was not libelled, I consented to his
suspension; but it was against my mind that Dr Baron should have been
censured for mere silence; yet it was carried.

One or two of your friends in our presbytery had been, for their
silence and ambiguity about the engagement, referred to the assembly,
had I not diverted and got that evil kept off them; for had they come
before us, possibly they had never come off.

We appointed visitations for universities and hospitals, and put on
them the sharpest men we had. Likely Edinburgh will not submit to
have either universities or hospitals visited, though they have most
need; and I pressed their visitation before any other; since, as yet,
they have ever declined it.

The commissioners for uniformity with England were continued without
change; only Lauderdale, to my grief, was justly omitted. I was
scarce resolved to have seen him; yet my Lady Wariston sent me to
him, as trusting in his friendship for her husband’s business. He
told me, that, however, to his best knowledge, there was no design
either on his place or person for the time; yet that he could not
answer for what might be shortly, especially when in debate and
discourse these things might escape him which might irritate them.
The good Wariston, lest by his enemies, he might be brought in by
violence, thought meet to retire to Kintyre, where, for the present,
he passes his time with Argyle. Lauderdale continues kind to me, and
regrets much the difference betwixt us; fears it become a fountain
of great evils, either the overthrow of the design for the King
against the sectaries, or the putting up of the malignant party so
high, that they will hardly be got ruled; at best the making of the
government of the church, as we exercise it, to be abhorred by all in
England and abroad, and intolerable to our own state at home. I find
the Treasurer in the same mind; but both of them fast enough, for
ought I can see, to our covenant and persons, except to one or two
whom they esteem the prime causes of this difference. In Mr William
Colvill’s censure, Mr David Calderwood rashly had said, “he was the
painfullest minister of Edinburgh.” This the Moderator exaggerated so
far, as some spoke of his removal for censure. The moderator before
had taken him up for his impertinencies indeed; yet too roughly, and
more, as I thought, than became. After this rencounter, Mr David went
home, and came no more to the assembly. At this I grieved; it may do
harm.

The state, on the Friday before we rose, gave in a large paper of
observations on our declaration. I take them to be Primrose their
clerk’s draught. We appointed the commission to sit and answer them.
They are but poor ones. That same day we renewed the commission of
the church. There is too great a change of the persons, and too
great addition of men who never have been members of any assembly;
also their power is too much enlarged, even to process all who
oppose their orders, as well as of the general assembly. I find
divers in the mind, that if once our army in England had got any
sensible success, our state are resolved totally to suppress the
commission of the church, as a judicatory not yet established by
law; and it is feared they will trouble the persons of some of us:
but the Lord’s will be done. I think indeed the carriage of some is
too high and peremptory; but if the state begin to trouble any of
us with imprisonment, it will be a great ill of long and dangerous
consequence.

On Saturday, August 12, we arose. In the morning I went away,
desirous, after much toil, to be at home that night, unwilling to
wait on the commission, to jangle more with the moderator. I was glad
we had all ended in peace. The matter of this unhappy engagement I
hope will not last, and so the ground of our difference with the
state shall be removed. But new grounds of division may possibly
arise, which may make our contentions greater.

THE

GENERAL ASSEMBLY,

AT EDINBURGH, 1649.

The mere perusal of the Acts of Assembly, 1648, supersedes the necessity of giving any particular description of its character. It approved of all the proceedings of its commission previous to its meeting, and superadded a great variety of declarations, warnings, and injunctions, couched in terms of defiance to the supreme authority of the State, by whose fiat alone it had its existence as an established church. It were a mere waste of time in this place to animadvert on these productions; but in the perilous state to which the Estates of the realm had reduced the kingdom, these proceedings dislocated and paralyzed the nation to such a degree, that it almost immediately after became an easy prey to the democratic levellers of England; and, before another year elapsed, they began to reap the bitter fruits of their infatuation, exemplified in their declarations of independence and supremacy.

Before, however, introducing the reader to the Acts of the Assembly of 1649—the last which the Kirk was permitted in a united and recognised form to hold for the space of forty-one years thereafter—it is necessary to advert to the political and military movements, both in Scotland and England, which intervened.

Immediately after the Scottish Commissioners entered into the engagement at the Isle of Wight for the deliverance of the King and country from the thraldom in which they were held by the English army and parliament, the Scottish nobles and gentry exerted themselves, as may be fairly inferred from the conduct of the Estates in the summer of 1648, as already recorded, in order to ensure success to their designs. But, unhappily, the elements of jealousy and disunion, which had been fermenting during the ten preceding years, and more especially the active hostility of a great portion of the clergy to the engagement, rendered these exertions in a great measure abortive. The nation—that is, the leading men, (for the great body of the people were in a state of abject vassalage to their lords and the clergy,) were, in this emergency, divided into three parties. The first consisted of the clergy and a few of the nobles, who would listen to no proposition for the King’s deliverance and restoration of the monarchy, except an unconditional submission, by him and all others, to the Solemn League and Covenant, and the Kirk as its administrators. Others were for liberating and restoring the King, without reference to ulterior arrangements. A third party were for combining that object with the maintenance of Presbytery and the Covenant in the mode adopted by the Estates in June, 1648. From among such heterogeneous materials, therefore, it was exceedingly difficult to create any one concentrated and united body such as should be able to rally and combine the energies of the kingdom in encountering the approaching struggle. Of the first class, Argyle may be regarded as the most prominent leader; and this party denounced the employment of any in the army, or in public office, who were not out-and-out for the League and Covenant. Of the second class were Traquair, Callender, and others, who again desired to include all who would promote the King’s cause; while Hamilton and his brother Lanerick, Lauderdale, and others, were disposed themselves to subscribe the Covenant, trusting to future modifications of its rigours, provided this sacrifice of their personal sentiments were conducive to the safety and honour of the King, and a cordial co-operation against his adversaries. And to this latter line of policy the great body of the gentry, and many of the clergy, were favourable; while Argyle’s party strained every nerve to defeat the coalition of parties on that basis, and held them up as intent on overturning entirely their kirk polity, if the engagement should prosper.

Amidst manifold difficulties, of which a very lively picture is given in Lanerick’s letters,[382] and other documents of the time, the levies for the army in Scotland were much retarded during the summer of 1648, by the speeches and intrigues of the clerical party,[383] by the want of money, and by the tremours generally awakened under such conflicting influences; but an important addition was made by the recall of a part of the Scottish troops, who were stationed in Ireland, and had continued there for some years. Of that army, above 2,000 foot and 1200 horse returned to Scotland. There had been great difficulty, too, in fixing on a generalissimo. Lord Leven and his brother David Leslie were generally desired, as their names and experience gave them a preference; and, although the latter had acquiesced in the common wish on this point, he afterwards declined. After much chaffering, Hamilton, as the leading nobleman of Scotland, was named to the chief command, although he had not hitherto given any proofs of possessing that military genius which inspires an army with assured confidence in its commander.

In addition to other embarrassments, there were differences of opinion among the Scottish leaders as to the time of making an effective movement of the army. Hamilton and Lanerick were for delay till their opponents at home were somewhat curbed, and their friends in England ready to co-operate by simultaneous demonstrations. But this was deemed inexpedient, as some English troops, under Lambert, were already advancing to the north of England; and, finally, it was resolved that there should be a general rendezvous of the Scottish army at Annan, on the 4th of July, 1648, just on the eve of the meeting of the General Assembly, whose anathemas against the Engagement, and all concerned in it, were fulminated, during the space of a whole month, in the capital of the kingdom.

About this time, and before the army was fully mustered, Loudoun, by whom the engagement had hitherto been zealously promoted, seceded from the cause; whether chagrined by any oversight of his pretensions to high command, or some other mixed motive, has not been sufficiently explained: and even before the army was collected at its rendezvous, Middleton and Urrey had a skirmish at Mauchline, in Ayrshire, with about 2000 rustic ultra-Covenanters, who, under the influence of the clergy, had assembled, with arms, on pretext of celebrating a communion. They were soon, however, dispersed by Callender, the second in command under Hamilton—sixty of the insurgents, and five officers, with some ministers, being taken prisoners. The peasants and clergy were released; the officers were condemned to death by a council of war, but were pardoned by Callender.[384]

At the day appointed, the army assembled; Colonel Lockhart having been previously stationed with some regiments of horse at Annan; Turner, with several regiments of infantry at Dumfries. Hamilton went from Edinburgh to Annan, accompanied by Callender, Middleton, and Baillie, with several regiments of horse and foot, and Turner joined them from Dumfries.

The army thus assembled is described as exceedingly ill appointed. Many of the regiments were not above half their regulated quota; not one in five of the infantry could handle pike or musket; and although the cavalry were the best mounted that had ever left Scotland, yet the troopers were raw and inexperienced, and there was not a single piece of artillery, while there was great want of ammunition, powder, and other necessaries.[385] The march from Annan was precipitated ere yet the army was properly organized, in consequence of movements in England.

Without entering into particulars of the march into England, and the skirmishes which took place with the English forces under Lambert, to whom Langdale, an English loyalist, was opposed, previous to the advance of the Scottish army, it is sufficient to note that it reached Crofton Hall, where it remained above a week, and proceeded successively to Penrith, Appleby, and Kirby-thore in Cumberland, where, in consequence of the inclemency of weather, it remained three weeks. During this progress, it had the advantage, in various conflicts, with Lambert, who retreated before Hamilton’s army. He waited for the rest of his forces, of which not above two-thirds had joined, and for the regiments from Ireland, under Monro, not yet arrived; and the whole amount of the Scottish army did not exceed 10,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry.

The next movement was to Kendal, (where Monro saw Hamilton,) and thence to Hornby, where it was debated in council whether the further march should be to Yorkshire or Lancashire. The latter was preferred—and Langdale led the van. The main body of cavalry, advancing before the infantry for lack of forage, were commanded by Callender and Middleton, to Wigan, and the bulk of the army marched forward to Preston. On the 18th of August, (the day after the army was thus separated,) Callender got notice that Cromwell was about to form a junction with Lambert; and the day following, while the Scottish army and Langdale’s auxiliaries were in this dislocated position, a general engagement took place, the particulars of which it is needless to describe; but the balance of success, after a desultory and gallant though decisive struggle, was in favour of Cromwell, who took advantage of the absence of Monro’s corps, and the separation of the Scottish cavalry and infantry: in short, a retreat was resolved on—and, labouring under numerous privations and hardships, amid unwonted floods of rain, the infantry, under Baillie, were obliged to capitulate to Cromwell—a mutiny arose among the troops—and, finally, at Utoxater, on the 25th of August, the broken remnant capitulated—surrendering their arms and munitions; the Duke, and all his officers and soldiers, having assurance of their lives, and of being treated honourably and with military courtesy. But before the articles of surrender were returned, the Duke had been taken prisoner by Gray of Grobie’s corps, and was carried successively to Derby, Loughburgh, Leicester, and Ashby de la Zouch, where he was kept a prisoner, from the 28th of August till the beginning of December, when he was carried to Windsor. And thus terminated this ill-concerted and fatal expedition in support of the Engagement.[386]

This disastrous issue of the expedition into England, in which several thousands of the Scottish army were killed, taken prisoners, or perished of hardships by the inclemency of the season, was followed by an insurrection in Scotland, of the parties opposed to the engagement, who had been repressed by the overawing power of Hamilton’s army previous to its defeat. Of the whole army that had crossed the Border, Monro’s detachment alone remained entire. It had never, owing to the jealousies which so unhappily prevailed among the nobles and officers in command, been incorporated with the main army, but remained detached in Cumberland; and, after the Duke’s defeat at Preston, Monro retired on Scotland, to which some fragments of the shattered army fought and found its way in a very broken condition. The rout of the expedition was received by what may most appropriately be called the Kirk party, with the highest exultation, and was hailed as an infallible token of the divine wrath against the engagement, and at a heaven-sent commemoration of the Covenant. Forthwith, on the earliest tidings reaching them, Loudoun, the chancellor, who had concerted and co-operated zealously in its promotion, but who had seen meet to desert it in time of need, and Eglinton, stirred up the people of the western counties; and the ministers speedily appeared in the field, leading up whole parishes with such arms as they could procure; and when these were wanting, pitchforks, scythes, and other such weapons were substituted. Loudoun issued the orders for these levies; Eglinton was their first commander; and Argyle made all haste to bring up his Highlanders to the Whigamore[387] host; for this was the occasion on which that distinctive appellation was used, of a party which still subsists, although in later times it has undergone prodigious transformations. Cassillis was one of those who had dissented in Parliament from the engagement and expedition, and he had some scruples at first about the lawfulness of this _raid_; but, ultimately, he joined some of the other western lords at Linlithgow, with his followers.

The defeat of the expedition, and the insurrection in the west, filled the Committee of Estates at Edinburgh with dismay and perplexity. Many of them were not very eager in the cause—all of them were anxious to save their estates from probable confiscation—and many were threatened by the ministers with excommunication. Under the influence, therefore, of terror, selfishness, and ghostly intimidation, their hearts sunk within them, more especially as the clergy threatened to call in the schismatic English army to their aid; and, after some hesitation, the greater number of them agreed to relinquish all attempts at resistance, and dispatched the Lairds of Lee and Humbie to the western insurgents, then advanced as far as Hamilton, on their way to the capital, with proposals for a cessation of arms, and to learn their demands with a view to a treaty. From the reproach of temporizing and cowardice, to which this committee was justly obnoxious, Lord Lanerick must be exempted. He strenuously urged fidelity to their engagement and the trust reposed in them; but all in vain; and, yielding to the torrent, he survived this manifestation of imbecility among his colleagues, to establish, on a future occasion, his claims to honour, to loyalty, and to patriotism, by perishing, sword in hand, on the battle-field, as his brother did on the scaffold—thus sealing, by the sacrifice of their fortunes and by their blood, their entire devotion to their King and country.

Monro, with his detachment, having, after the battle of Preston, marched towards the east coast, reached Berwick, where he received notice, from the Committee of Estates, of the insurrection in the west, and orders to join them at Colbrandspath; and these they issued after having resolved to abandon the engagement. He marched to Colbrandspath, but found not there the promised meeting; and after waiting a day or two, he received fresh orders to advance to Haddington, where Lanerick, Crawfurd, and Glencairn met him with some troops that had escaped from the fight of Preston. On a master of all the forces at Gladsmuir, they were found to be about 3,000 horse and 2,000 infantry. By this time the whigamores had carried their raid as far as Edinburgh, whence the Committee of Estates had fled; and, when Monro’s force had advanced to Musselburgh, they descried some hundreds of the whig troopers who bad been sent to that neighbourhood to reconnoitre, but who retreated after losing a few prisoners taken at the bridge.

The whigamores were organized in and about Edinburgh, under old Leven and David Leslie. Monro offered to drive them out, but the majority of the committee overruled this course; while, on the other hand, the ministers and insurgent lords urged an attack on Monro, which the experienced old soldiers in command resisted, as perilous with such raw levies; and, in the meantime, Lee and Humbie were busied in negotiations betwixt the two parties, but without effect.

From Inveresk, the Committee of Estates, such as it was, under the protection of Monro’s band, marched westward by the eastern acclivity of the Pentland Hills, Collington, Corstorphine, and so on towards Linlithgow—the object being to intercept some of the whig levies from the west under Cassillis, Kirkcudbright, and Argyle, and ultimately to establish themselves in Stirling, as a central rallying point suitable for maintaining their army and receiving auxiliaries from the northern shires, not yet compromised or overborne by whig ascendency. Cassillis, with some hundred horse, was almost surprised by Monro’s advance, but, in the darkness of the night, escaped by Borrowstounness, and afterwards through Queensferry to Edinburgh. David Leslie followed in Monro’s rear, but did not venture an attack; and Monro would willingly have turned upon him, but was anxious to push on to Stirling. At Larbert, he learned that Argyle, with a troop of horse and a thousand foot, was in the town of Stirling, with a committee of his party, endeavouring, by treaty, to get possession of the castle, which was garrisoned by the King’s troops; and, as the port of the town was shut and manned, he was obliged to go round the castle, in order to secure the bridge, and prevent Argyle’s retreat before he could reach him. On Monro’s advance, the royal standard was hoisted, and the guns from the castle began to play on some of Argyle’s party who were retiring alongst it; but Monro, with a few of his men advancing, and the rest following rapidly, about a hundred were either killed or drowned in the river, and betwixt eight and nine hundred taken prisoners; Argyle himself, as was his wont, making his escape.

The Committee of Estates at Stirling, on this success, issued orders for raising all the fencible men in the northern shires; and Lanerick went to Perthshire to unite the nobility and gentry there; but very speedily the divisions and sinister objects of the leading men, which have so often proved ruinous to Scotland, did their work; and the craven and slippery members of the committee began to listen to propositions from the whig leaders and clergy. Distraction of councils neutralized effectually all opposition to the treacherous machinations of Argyle and his associates. That nobleman, mortified and excited by his late defeat at Stirling, having joined the whigamores in Edinburgh after his escape, prompted measures equally vindictive and treacherous to his native country; and, with the sanction of his allies, he, Lord Elcho, and two other commissioners, went to Berwick with an invitation to Cromwell to join “the honest party” (as they called themselves) at Edinburgh with his army—an invitation which, it is no ways surprising, was most cordially accepted. In these circumstances, and pending the progress of the negotiations betwixt the leaders on both sides, Monro and his officers saw the necessity of negotiating for their own safety, and (18th September) sent articles to the whig headquarters at Edinburgh, which ended in a treaty that the Irish troops should be allowed to have free passage to Ireland; that none should be questioned for what was past, but that all who had been in the Engagement should lay down their offices and places of trust, and not be allowed to sit in any judicatory; and that all public matters should be referred to the determination of the Parliament and General Assembly. And thus was dissolved and dissipated the last show of lawful authority in the Committee of Estates, and the last fragment of the host which went forth under the warrant of the Scottish Parliament for maintaining the ancient monarchy of the country in the person of King Charles I., and for vindicating the independence of that parliament and the kingdom.

The bad faith of the whigs was fully illustrated in a very brief time; for, instead of abiding by this treaty, the troops, who separated in reliance on it, were no sooner dispersed than it was violated. Those of them who were to go to Ireland were attacked on their march betwixt Glasgow and Ayr, and plundered, abused, and scattered; and within a very few days, a proclamation was issued at Edinburgh, commanding all persons who had been in the army in support of the “unlawful Engagement,” (an enterprise undertaken under the authority, be it remembered, of the King and Parliament,) to remove at least twelve miles from town, under pain of imprisonment, Cromwell being on his way thither.

Having thus possessed themselves of power, the whig leaders constituted themselves into a Committee of Estates, without the shadow of any legitimate warrant. Some of them had indeed been named on the committee, but being protesters against the Engagement, it was with an express proviso that they should not be capable of acting until they owned the Resolutions and Declarations of Parliament. Disregarding this condition, however, these insurgent leaders arrogated to themselves the supreme authority, pretending they were appointed by that very act of the States which actually debarred them; and, as the best proof that could be adduced of the principles by which they were governed, we insert, among the annexed documents, the instructions given to their commissioners sent to the English Parliament.[388]

From that humiliating record of national prostration we are constrained to turn and advert to some of its accompaniments.

On the 22d of September, “the Marquiss of Argyle, the Lord Elcoe, Sir John Scot, and others, came as Commissioners from the honest party in Scotland to the Lord of Mordington’s house at Mordington, to the Lieutenant-General’s [Cromwell’s] quarters, two miles from Berwick, within Scotland.” “The Lords day, Argyle sent in to desire the Governour himself to come forth,” the town being still held by a Scottish garrison; “and the Lords day, at night, Colonel Pride possessed himself of Tweedmouth;” and, next morning, tidings reached Mordington that treaties were in progress for disbanding all the Scottish armies—that Argyle had taken 10,000 arms which had arrived from Denmark for the Duke of Hamilton—and that the “honest party” in Scotland had coalesced completely with the “godly party” of England, whom hitherto they had abhorred as heretics and schismatics. On the 2d of October, Cromwell writes that Berwick and Carlisle were delivered up to him; and the terms of compromise agreed on betwixt him and the Scottish deputies, stand on record: that all the Scottish armies should be disbanded—that the affairs of religion in the three kingdoms should be settled by the General Assembly—all civil questions by a Parliament in January following—and that from that Parliament should be excluded every man who had been accessary to the late engagement; and, moreover, that though life and property should be spared from forfeiture, this should only be to those who, before the 10th of October, accepted and submitted to that agreement.[389] Cromwell was met by Lord Kirkcudbright and General Holburn at Seaton, (his headquarters,) as a deputation from the Committee of Estates. They accompanied him to Edinburgh, where he was lodged in the Earl of Moray’s house in the Canongate, and a guard of honour appointed to protect him. Loudoun, Leven, Argyle, Cassillis, Burley, General David Leslie, and Wariston, paid him homage, when he “did demand that, to prevent the reviving or re-inforcement of their late Engagement and invasion, none that had been in action therein, or accessary thereto, might henceforward be employed in any public place of trust whatsoever.” Two days after, “the same persons brought back from the Committee of Estates a very satisfactory answer, giving assurance, in name of the kingdom of Scotland, that accordingly none should be employed, with this addition only—without the consent of the kingdom of England—which the honest party thought to be the surest lay and bar against the malignants creeping in any more. Several select ministers also came from the Commissioners of the Kirk, both to congratulate and discuss for mutual satisfaction.”—“The Lord Provost, and several eminent citizens performed a visit also, and old Sir William Dick, in the name of the rest, made a great oration.”—“Our entertainment, during our abode at Edinburgh, was taken care of and defrayed by the Lord Provost, by order of the Committee of Estates; and, when we were about to come away, [11th October,] several coaches were sent to bring up the Lieut.-General Leven, Sir Arthur Haselrig and the rest of the officers to Edinburgh Castle, where was provided a very sumptuous banquet—the Lord General Leven, the Lord Marquiss of Argile, and divers other Lords being present to grace the entertainment. At our departure, many pieces of ordinance, and a volley of small shot, was given us from the castle, and we convoyed by some Lords without the city, where we parted.”[390]

These particulars are sufficient for exemplifying the state of national degradation to which Scotland was thus reduced, when some of the proudest of her nobles thus bowed the knee to a hypocritical alien and dictator, and when the champions of Covenanted Presbytery offered up incense to the leader of that band of armed schismatics against whom they had fiercely and often fulminated all the thunders of reprobation. We make no comments, but have stated the facts from the most unquestionable authority, to which we now make reference. Thus did Scotland prostitute the motto and emblem of her national independence, and cast away her sword and her shield of defence.

In the foregoing narrative, it has been our endeavour, for the sake of distinctness, to confine it almost exclusively to the transactions in Scotland; but the affairs of the two kingdoms were at that time so much interwoven, that it is necessary also to take a cursory glance at the more remarkable occurrences in England during the period to which our attention is confined, inasmuch as these had a most important bearing and effect on the kingdom and church of Scotland. We must, therefore, revert to the position of England at and subsequently to the month of July, 1648.

Simultaneously with the progress of the engagement in Scotland, and indeed prematurely and before the Estates of Scotland had fully matured their plans and organized their army, a great variety of insurrections arose in England, adverse to the despotism of the parliament, which was but the slave of the army. The first who declared themselves were three Presbyterian officers in Wales—Langhorne, Poyer, and Powel—who commanded troops in Wales. In Kent, the Earl of Norwich headed another muster; while in Essex, Lord Capel and others; Lord Holland in Surrey; Langdale and Musgrave were in arms at Berwick and Carlisle; and Maurice seized Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire. And, to add to the embarrassments of the ruling power, the crews of seventeen ships of war, stationed in the mouth of the Thames, declared for the King. Having turned the Admiral ashore, they proceeded to Holland, where they put themselves under command of the Prince, (afterwards Charles II.;) and, subsequently, appeared on the coast of England, to aid in the general movement. Undismayed, however, by these threatening appearances, the cabal of statesmen and soldiers, who had already triumphed over powerful armies commanded by the King and many able officers, prepared for a vigorous struggle. The Parliamentary army, being an establishment of 26,000 men, was speedily recruited to double the number, and, ere long, distributed in the quarters where danger was most imminent. Colonel Horton, followed by Cromwell, attacked and defeated the royalists in Wales; Lambert was opposed to Langdale and Musgrave in the north; Livesey defeated Holland and took him prisoner; and Fairfax gained advantages in Essex; the parliamentary army thus baffling their antagonists at all points, and meeting with a greater or less degree of success.

The army being thus withdrawn from the metropolis and its vicinity, the Parliament was freed from the pressure by which it had been borne down, and resumed something of its wonted energy. Those who had been ejected at the instigation of the army, or had fled from its menaces, returned and restored the ascendancy of the Presbyterian party; and various votes, by which members had been expelled and addresses to the King prohibited, were rescinded—all of which terminated in a new deputation of Lords and Commons to negotiate of new with the King, at Newport, in the Isle of Wight. This negotiation was opened on the 18th of September, 1648, when his Majesty’s altered appearance, under the pressure of his misfortunes and captivity, touched the feelings of his visiters. It is needless to recapitulate the topics of negotiation, which were merely a repetition of those that have already been so often stated; but, in rigorous bondage—under the control of a power which he could not resist—he virtually yielded up to the demands of a usurping Parliament all the prerogatives of the monarchy; yet he would not consent that those who had fought and suffered in his service should be delivered up to merciless vengeance, nor would he renounce his religious faith.

We have read many solemn homilies on the insincerity evinced by Charles I. in this and other treaties with the English Parliament, and his name has been often blackened, because, while engaged in those treaties, his friends rose in arms in his cause, and he contemplated an escape from the hands of his oppressors. These, with all deference to high names, appear to be a mere waste of words and of affected morality.

In the first place, none of the treaties, so far as we can discover, ever were fully completed by the entire acquiescence of all parties pretending to have a concern in the matter; and his Majesty’s concessions, however lavish, were, ever and anon, declared “unsatisfactory;” so that a treaty, not completed, could not be deemed binding in diplomacy or in morality. Besides, it is a maxim, we believe, in the law of nations, that any obligation extorted from an individual in durance, _vi et metu_, is essentially null; and we humbly venture to regard the Long Parliament of England, during the greater part of its career, and more particularly at the time to which we now refer, as a mere horde of rebels, having no higher sanction in the law and constitution of the kingdom of England than any gang of banditti, who, having overmastered a solitary and defenceless traveller, and immured him in their den, dictate to him such terms of release from their grasp as cupidity or caprice may suggest. As a preliminary to the dogmatic condemnation which has so long and so liberally been bestowed on the name and memory of Charles, it is necessary that the legality of the pretended Parliament, which gained power over his person—that the seizure of it by the soldiery—that the retention of it by the Parliament—shall be clearly demonstrated; for, until that be done, the inculpation of the King in his negotiations with it, and the assumed legitimacy of the parliamentary proceedings, is nothing better than mere assumption and the advocacy of brute force, as the only criterion of truth and justice. This doctrine may not be very palatable to some tastes; but we cannot consent, in deference to such moralists, to stifle the honest convictions of our own mind, in reference to a great question in the constitutional history and principles of the British monarchy.

The various insurrections, during the autumn of 1648, were defeated both in England and Scotland, and a temporary but tyrannous repose restored under the domination of the “honest” Parliament in England, and the equally “honest” Committee of Estates in Scotland; while multitudes of prisoners of both nations were shipped off in exile, and confiscations were too numerous to admit of detail, the despotism which prevailed under the sway of those popular potentates being more cruel than was ever experienced in Britain at any period of its history. A great part of the army, not required for garrisons and keeping the provinces in awe, had now returned to the neighbourhood of London, and began to shew symptoms of resuming its sway over the councils in the metropolis. So early as the 11th of September, a petition from some thousands of “well-affected” persons in London was presented to the Commons, setting forth no fewer than twenty-seven heads of reform, and craving “that they would make good the supream [power] of the people from all pretences of negative voices either in the King or Lords;” “that they would make laws for election of representatives yearly, and, of course, without writ or summons;” that they would “have removed the tedious burthen of tithes,” and a great many other things of the same sort. This petition, however, was laid aside with a soft answer.

It was not, however, until the army began to reassemble at St Albans, (Fairfax’s headquarters,) in October, that this movement assumed a more formidable aspect. On the 30th of that month, an incendiary petition[391] was reported to have been presented to the General by the officers of Ingolby’s regiment, then stationed at Oxford, which craved that “justice be done upon the principal Invaders of our Liberties, namely, the King and his party;” and, after various meetings and consultations of the general council of officers, a letter from Fairfax to the Speaker, and relative remonstrance, were communicated to the house on the 20th of November, to the effect that “Parliament hath abundant cause to lay aside any further proceeding in this treaty, [which was still pending,] and to return to their votes of non-addresses, and settle with or against the King that he may come no more to government;” “that they proceed against the King in way of Justice;” “that the King be brought to justice as the capital cause of all,” &c. This letter and remonstrance are of such a nature, that it is fitting to give them as they are to be found in Rushworth.[392] This singular remonstrance not only proposed a trial of the King, but craved that the monarchy should be rendered elective, and that the whole power of the State, legislative and executive, should henceforward be vested in a democratic House of Commons, to be annually or biennially chosen by the people. It was not communicated to the Lords.

It is difficult to trace the proposition for bringing the King to trial to its first source. Some historians have ascribed it to Ireton. It has been said that it was first mooted in a military council at Windsor; and further, to have been concerted betwixt Cromwell and Argyle, while the former was on the Borders, and on his visit to Edinburgh. There is probably some truth in all these statements; for, when we reflect on the progress of insubordination and the usurping spirit displayed in the Parliament and army, we can be at no loss to account for the disorganizing and levelling principles which were thus widely scattered abroad and familiarized to the national mind. The letter and remonstrance, now referred to, occupied some hours in the reading, and the debates thereon were very high; but, at last, it was ordered to be further considered on Monday following. And now, as we shall immediately see, the downward course of revolution proceeded with an accelerated velocity. In reference to the last treaty, it may be proper to note that, on the 25th of November, it was regarded as broken up by reason of the King having given his ultimate answer that he would not consent to the proposals of the Commissioners for utterly abolishing Episcopacy, the spoliation of the Bishops’ lands, and respecting Ireland. His Majesty was, in consequence, strictly guarded at Newport, and the headquarters of the army removed to Windsor.[393]

On the 27th of November, letters were, by the Commons, received from the headquarters of the army, stating “that the officers have had serious counsels, and yesterday spent wholly in prayer, how to effect what they desire in the remonstrance; they are unanimous and resolute in hasting what possible to bring delinquents to punishment, and settle the kingdom in peace, with what necessary laws are wanting for benefit and ease of the subject,” &c.; and, at the same time, letters from Cromwell at Knottingsly, transmitted demands from the officers of the regiments under his command to have “impartial justice done upon offenders,” in which, said he, “I do in all, from my heart, concur with them.” On the 30th a letter came from headquarters, intimating that, upon a very full council, a declaration was agreed to in further prosecution of the ends of their late remonstrance; and that they had resolved to march the army up to London; and that declaration intimated very unceremoniously that it was a treacherous and corrupt neglect of public trust in the Commons to lay their remonstrance aside—that the Parliament was incompetent to judge of this breach of trust—that they appealed from Parliament to the “extraordinary judgment of God for obtaining a more orderly judicature”—that they should rejoice if the majority of the Commons were sensible of the evil of their late way, and “that the honest members would, by protestation, acquit themselves, and withdraw from the rest.”[394]

These threats were speedily carried into effect. On the previous day a detachment of troops had gone to the Isle of Wight, and having entered the King’s bedchamber ere break of day, and before he had risen, they seized on his person, forcing him, in the most violent and discourteous manner, from the custody of those whom the Parliament had intrusted with the charge of him. His Majesty was thence carried to Hurst Castle, on the opposite coast. On December 1st, Fairfax wrote to the Lord Mayor that the army was about to advance on London, and demanded £40,000 of arrears. The same day the House of Commons declared the King’s concessions “unsatisfactory,” but postponed further debate; and the General’s letter to the city having been brought before the house, it ordered the city to pay the money, but desired a letter to the General, that it was the pleasure of the house that his excellency remove the army no nearer London. The pleasure of the house, however, was now of small avail. The debate was resumed on the 2d and 4th; on the latter of which occasions, intelligence was received from the officers who had charge of the King, that his Majesty had been carried off to Hurst Castle by a party of military acting under instructions of the General and Council of War. On this it was voted, that the seizing and carrying off of the King was without the advice or consent of the house;[395] and, after sitting all night, they came to the conclusion (December 5th) “that his Majesty’s concessions to the propositions of Parliament upon the treaty are sufficient grounds for settling the peace of the kingdom:”[396] a resolution to which they were not permitted long to adhere, a considerable part of the army having entered London while this debate was going on. Nor did they long continue inactive; for, next morning, two regiments were set as a guard on the Parliament, the city bands discharged, and forty-one members were seized on their way to the house, and kept in custody, by special order from the General and council of the army—a proceeding which has since become a familiar phrase, as “Colonel Pride’s purge.” The house being informed of this, sent their sergeant-at-arms to summon the attendance of the imprisoned members; but the sergeant brought a message from the captain of the guard, that he kept them in custody by order of his superior officers, which he was to obey before any other command; and that he could not, therefore, dismiss his prisoners till he had other orders to the contrary.[397] In the course of the same day, some officers of the army presented the proposals and desires of the army, which were in substance, that Hollis, Coply, Massey, and others, to the number of ninety, who had voted that the parties concerned in the late engagement were not public enemies, should be brought to justice or excluded the house. They also demanded abrogation of certain proceedings of the house, such as agreeing to treat with the King, and declaring his concessions to be a good ground for making peace; and craved that those only who by protestation should quit themselves of these proceedings, should be allowed to remain in the house, &c.[398]

On the 7th, Cromwell came to the house, and received its thanks for his services; and, that day, several other members were prevented by the guard from entering the house, which, in a state of terror, broke up, after agreeing to hold a humiliation and fast in the house next day, and to discuss the army’s proposals on the 9th. Notwithstanding the prayerful proceedings in the house on the 8th, the General marched two regiments of foot and several troops of cavalry into the city, (the bulk of the army being stationed in the suburbs,) and secured the treasuries of several incorporations, from one of which £20,000 were taken. On the day following the proposed debate dropped _sub silentio_; and nothing was done save listening to communications from the city and General about cash; but, for further security, another regiment of dragoons was quartered in the city. And thus the city, suburbs, and precincts of Parliament, continued in military occupation, neither of the houses sitting till Tuesday the 12th of December. In the meanwhile, however, the General and Council concocted, on the Monday, what may be termed a “Reform Bill”—embracing various propositions for an equal representation—for the dissolution of the existing Parliament—relating to the qualification of members; and, on the whole, presenting a model not very dissimilar to the codes of our more modern Radicals and Chartists.[399]

On the 12th of December, both houses met. In the Commons, a vote of 3d January, 1647, by which Hollis and ten other members, previously excluded, had been rescinded, was declared null; and another vote of 30th June, 1648, concurring with the Lords for opening a treaty with the King, was declared highly dishonourable to the proceedings of Parliament, and nullified. The Sheriff of London, and six other persons, were apprehended by the army, and imprisoned in St James’; and the house and army vied with each other in renouncing all the acts which they had recently passed for effecting a settlement of affairs in the kingdom.[400] Next day, the Commons reconsidered these resolutions, and fully adopted them; declaring that no further communications should be made to or received from the King; and that whosoever contravened these ordinances should be guilty of high treason.[401]

From this time forward the whole affairs of England may be regarded as being entirely under a military government. From all quarters, where portions of the army were stationed, declarations of adherence to the remonstrance were poured in. The General and Council issued proclamations for freedom of trade; and the Parliament—an obedient tool in the hands of the soldiery—complied with all that was dictated to them. Of the secluded members, sixteen were liberated from confinement. The new navy, under the Earl of Warwick’s command, concurred with the army, in the council at which all matters of civil and ecclesiastical concernment were discussed and decided on as they thought fit: in short, the nation groaned under a military despotism.

The King was taken from Hurst Castle to Windsor on the 23d of December; and, on the 25th, a committee of the Commons was appointed to consider in what manner proceedings should be held against him; petitions from Norfolk and elsewhere pouring in with clamorous demands that he and all others aiding and abetting him “in shedding blood, may, without further delay, be brought to due and impartial justice.” The Council of War, on the 27th, gave an order that all ceremonies to the King be left off—his attendants to be fewer, and at less expense; and, the day after, the committee appointed to consider of the charge against the King, and the manner of his trial, reported an ordinance for attainting him of high treason, and for trying him by such commissioners as should be nominated in the body of the said ordinance. On Friday the ordinance was committed; and, on the 1st of January, 1649, the Commons passed an act nominating 150 commissioners and judges for the hearing, trying, and adjudging the said Charles Stuart for the treasons imputed to him.[402]

On the 2d of January, the ordinance for trial of the King was, by message, brought up to the Lords, who demurred to it, and evaded an immediate answer by saying that they would send it by their own messenger, and adjourned for ten days. A deputation of the Commons was, however, sent (3d January) to examine the Lords’ journals, and reported thence “that their Lordships do not concur to the declaration; and that their Lordships rejected the ordinance for the trial of the King;” and, after adjusting the names of the commissioners, by excluding the peers who had been named, and substituting others, and resolving that the ordinance for trial should be in name of the Commons only, they, on the 4th, passed the following resolutions:—

“_Resolved_, That the Commons of England assembled in Parliament do declare that the people under God are the original of all just powers.

“They do likewise declare, that the Commons of England assembled in Parliament being chosen by, and representing the people, have the supreme authority of this nation.

“They do likewise declare, that whatsoever is enacted and declared law by the Commons of England, assembled in Parliament, hath the force of law; and all the people of this nation are included thereby, although the consent and concurrence of the King and the House of Peers be not had thereunto.

“These being reported to the House, the House put them, one after another, to the question, and there was not one negative voice to any one of them. Then an ordinance for trial of Charles Stuart was again read and assented unto, and ordered to be forthwith engrossed in Parchment, and to be brought in to-morrow morning.”[403]

And here, for the present, we pause in our narrative of proceedings in England, that we may recur to those in the Parliament of Scotland, which met at Edinburgh the same day that the Commons of England had adopted these resolutions. We have entered more particularly into the foregoing statements, which are drawn from the journals of the Parliament itself, because, without tracing the entire progress of events in their due order, it is impossible to form any just conception of the real facts from the general histories which treat of that period, and because it is desirable to exhibit in their true colours the outrageous nature of proceedings by which a self-constituted and lawless oligarchy, by palpable and daring acts of usurpation, overturned the constitution of their country, and established in its stead a wild, democratic, and military despotism.