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tish nation to surrender him, was brought to the king; and he happened, at that very time, to be playing at chess". Such command of temper did he possess, that he continued his game without interruption; and none of the bystanders could perceive that the letter which he perused had brought him news of any consequence. The English commissioners, who, some days after, came to take him under their custody, were admitted to kiss his hands; and he received them with the same grace and cheerfulness as if they had travelled on no other errand than to pay court to him. The old earl of Pembroke, in particular, who was one of them, he congratulated on his strength and vigour, that he was still able, during such a season, to perform so long a journey, in company with so many young people.

The king, being delivered over by the Scots to the King deli-English commissioners, was conducted under a guard to vered up by the Scots. Holdenby, in the county of Northampton. On his journey, the whole country flocked to behold him, moved partly by curiosity, partly by compassion and affection. If any still retained rancour against him, in his present condition, they passed in silence; while his well-wishers, more generous than prudent, accompanied his march with tears, with acclamations, and with prayers for his safety. That ancient superstition, likewise, of desiring the king's touch in scrophulous distempers, seemed to acquire fresh credit among the people, from the general tenderness which began to prevail for this virtuous and unhappy monarch.

The commissioners rendered his confinement at Holdenby very rigorous; dismissing his ancient servants, debarring him from visits, and cutting off all communication with his friends or family. The parliament, though earnestly applied to by the king, refused to allow his chaplains to attend him, because they had not taken the coveThe king refused to assist at the service exercised according to the directory; because he had not as yet

nant.

"Burnet's Memoirs of the Hamiltons.

* Ludlow. Herbert.

given his consent to that mode of worship". Such religious zeal prevailed on both sides; and such was the unhappy and distracted condition to which it had reduced king and people.

During the time that the king remained in the Scottish army at Newcastle, died the earl of Essex, the discarded, but still powerful and popular general of the parliament. His death, in this conjuncture, was a public misfortune. Fully sensible of the excesses to which affairs had been carried, and of the worse consequences which were still to be apprehended, he had resolved to conciliate a peace, and to remedy, as far as possible, all those ills to which, from mistake rather than any bad intentions, he had himself so much contributed. The presbyterian, or the moderate party among the commons, found themselves considerably weakened by his death: and the small remains of authority, which still adhered to the house of peers, were in a manner wholly extinguished".

Clarendon, vol. v. p. 39. Warwick, p. 298. z Clarendon, vol. v. p. 43.

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CHARLES THE FIRST.

HE dominion of the parliament was of short duration. No sooner had they subdued their sovereign, than their own servants rose against them, and tumbled them from their slippery throne. The sacred boundaries of the laws being once violated, nothing remained to confine the wild projects of zeal and ambition: and every successive revolution became a precedent for that which followed it.

In proportion as the terror of the king's power diminished, the division between independent and presbyterian became every day more apparent; and the neuters found it at last requisite to seek shelter in one or the other faction. Many new writs were issued for elections, in the room of members who had died, or were disqualified by adhering to the king; yet still the presbyterians retained the superiority among the commons: and all the peers, except lord Say, were esteemed of that party. The independents, to whom the inferior sectaries adhered, predominated in the army; and the troops of the new model were universally infected with that enthusiastic spirit. To

their assistance did the independent party among the commons chiefly trust in their projects for acquiring the ascendant over their antagonists.

Soon after the retreat of the Scots, the presbyterians, seeing every thing reduced to obedience, began to talk of diminishing the army; and, on pretence of easing the public burthens, they levelled a deadly blow at the opposite faction. They purposed to embark a strong detachment under Skippon and Massey, for the service of Ireland: they openly declared their intention of making a great reduction of the remainder. It was even imagined that another new model of the army was projected, in order to regain to the presbyterians that superiority which they had so imprudently lost by the former ".

The army had small inclination to the service of Ireland; a country barbarous, uncultivated, and laid waste by massacres and civil commotions: they had less inclination to disband, and to renounce that pay which, having earned it through fatigues and dangers, they now purposed to enjoy in ease and tranquillity. And most of the officers, having risen from the dregs of the people, had no other prospect, if deprived of their commission, than that of returning to languish in their native poverty and obscurity.

These motives of interest acquired additional influence, and became more dangerous to the parliament, from the religious spirit by which the army was universally actuated. Among the generality of men educated in regular, civilized societies, the sentiments of shame, duty, honour, have considerable authority, and serve to counterbalance and direct the motives derived from private advantage: but, by the predominancy of enthusiasm among the parliamentary forces, these salutary principles lost their credit, and were regarded as mere human inventions, yea, moral institutions, fitter for heathens than for christians". The saint, resigned over to superior guidance, was at full liberty to gratify all his appetites, dis

a Fourteen thousand men were only intended to be kept up; six thousand horse, six thousand foot, and two thousand dragoons. Bates.

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guised under the appearance of pious zeal. And besides the strange corruptions engendered by this spirit, it eluded and loosened all the ties of morality, and gave entire scope, and even sanction, to the selfishness and ambition which naturally adhere to the human mind.

The military confessors were farther encouraged in disobedience to superiors, by that spiritual pride to which a mistaken piety is so subject. They were not, they said, mere janizaries; mercenary troops enlisted for hire, and to be disposed of at the will of their paymasters d. Religion and liberty were the motives which had excited them to arms; and they had a superior right to see those blessings, which they had purchased with their blood, ensured to future generations. By the same title that the presbyterians, in contradistinction to the royalists, had appropriated to themselves the epithet of godly, or the well affected; the independents did now, in contradistinction to the presbyterians, assume this magnificent appellation, and arrogate all the ascendant which naturally belongs to it.

Hearing of parties in the house of commons, and being informed that the minority were friends to the army, the majority enemies; the troops naturally interested themselves in that dangerous distinction, and were eager to give the superiority to their partisans. Whatever hardships they underwent, though perhaps derived from inevitable necessity, were ascribed to a settled design of oppressing them, and resented as an effect of the animosity and malice of their adversaries.

Notwithstanding the great revenue which accrued from taxes, assessments, sequestrations, and compositions, considerable arrears were due to the army; and many of the private men, as well as officers, had near a twelvemonth's pay still owing them. The army suspected that this deficiency was purposely contrived in order to oblige them to live at free quarters; and, by rendering them odious to the country, serve as a pretence for disbanding them. When they saw such members as were employed in comd Rush, vol. vii. p. 565. • Ibid. p. 474.