two private soldiers out of every regiment, to consult for the good of the army, and to be called by the name of adjutators." From this council or conclave the superior officers stood aloof; but Berry, a captain in Fairfax's regiment of horse, and an old and bosom-friend of Cromwell, became president of it, whence it has been generally concluded by historians that the whole affair, if not originally got up by Cromwell, was guided and directed by him. On the 30th of April these adjutators, whose name was soon changed into that of agitators, sent three troopers-Sexby, Allen, and Shepherd-to present their first manifesto to the commons, and tell them they "sought to become masters, and were degenerating into tyrants." Cromwell, who a few weeks before was given to believe that the Presbyterians intended to seize him and commit him to the Tower -a plan which appears really to have been entertained at several distinct times-rose up and spoke at great length about the danger of driving the army to extremities, and about the pure and entire loyalty of that meritorious body; and, strange and unaccountable as it is, it is certain that the house forthwith commissioned him, with Skippon, Ireton, and Fleetwood, to repair to head-quarters, and quiet the distempers of the army by assuring them that the house had appointed an ordinance to be speedily brought in for their indemnity, payment of arrears, &c. Cromwell, and those who had been appointed with him, presented themselves to the army on the 7th of May. The officers required time to confer with their regiments, and a second meeting took place on the 15th. Cromwell, Ireton, and Fleetwood encouraged the discontents, and Skippon at last decided in favour of the proposition presented by Lambert, that the redress of the grievances of the army should have precedence of all other questions. But disagreements broke out among the soldiery, some of whom would have closed with the offers of parliament; and, emboldened by these symptoms of division, the Presbyterian leaders, after hearing the report of Cromwell, who had returned from the camp to the house, passed a resolution, that immediate measures should be taken for auditing the accounts of the soldiers, and disbanding the regiments. This was on the 21st of May. On the next day Fairfax, who had

been in London under a real or pretended sickness, returned to the army by the desire of the House of Commons, and on the morrow he removed the mass of that army from SaffronWalden to Eury-St.-Edmund's. He found the soldiers resolute not to disband without previous redress and payment, and the punishment of those who, as they said, had contrived their destruction; and they called for a rendezvous, telling their officers that, if they would not grant it, they would hold it without them. Fairfax reported all this to the house. On the 28th of May, the Presbyterians appointed the Earl of Warwick, and five other members of the house, to be a committee to act with the general (Fairfax) in executing the disbanding vote. Fairfax told this deputation that he could venture to do nothing of the sort for the present.

The crisis was now hurried on. The lords voted that the king should be brought from Holmby to Oatlands near the capital, and that a fresh treaty should be opened with him. The army and the Independents, who were almost one, resolved to forestall the lords and the Presbyterians. On the 3d of June, a little after midnight, a strong party of horse, commanded by Joyce, a cornet in Whalley's regiment, pre

HOLMBY HOUSE.-Baker's Northamptonshire.

sented themselves at Holmby House. Joyce dismounted, and demanded to be admitted, telling Colonels Graves and Brown, who commanded the small garrison there, that he came to speak with the king. They asked him from whom? "From myself," said Joyce; at which they laughed. "This is no laughing matter," said the cornet of horse. Colonel Graves commanded the soldiers in the house to stand to their arms; but, instead of obeying, the men threw open the gates, and bade their old comrades welcome. Joyce then proceeded to the chamber where the 177-8

parliament commissioners lay, and told them that there was a secret design to steal away the king and raise another army; that there was no other means of keeping the kingdom from blood and another war but by the army making sure of the king's person. All the rest of that night and the whole of the following day Joyce remained quiet in Holmby House, without intruding himself into the king's chamber. But the mansion was well watched and guarded both within and without; and there was not a soldier there but was an Independent or a worshipper of Cromwell. At ten o'clock of the night after his arrival the cornet demanded and obtained an audience. He told the king that dangerous plots were afoot, that his majesty must be placed in better keeping, that now matters were come to this-the Presbyterians must sink the Independents or the Independents the Presbyterians. After some conversation, in which Charles exacted from Joyce promises that his life should be safe in his hands, that his conscience should not be forced, and that some of his attendants should be allowed to accompany him, it was agreed that the removal should be made quietly on the following morning. At six o'clock in the morning the king appeared booted for the journey. He, however, seemed to hesitate; and he asked Joyce what commission he had to secure his person?-whether he had nothing in writing from Sir Thomas Fairfax, his general? The cornet desired the king not to ask him such questions, which, he conceived, he had sufficiently answered before. "I pray you, Mr. Joyce," said the king, "deal ingenuously with me, and tell me what commission you have?"

"Here is my commission," said Joyce. "Where?" said the king. "Here!" replied the cornet. His majesty again asked, "Where?" "Behind me,” replied Joyce, pointing to the mounted soldiers. His majesty smiled and said, "It is as fair a commission, and as well written as I have ever seen in my life! A company of handsome proper gentlemen!" After a few more words the king mounted, the trumpet sounded, and the whole party rode rapidly away from Holmby House. That night Charles slept at Hinchinbrook, and on the morrow they carried him to Childerley, near Newmarket.'

On the same day that Joyce had moved from Holmby House Cromwell had left London, having, it is said, intimation of a secret resolution that had been taken by the parliament to arrest him. He got secretly out of town, and without stop or stay rode to Triploe Heath, his horse all in a foam, and there was welcomed with the shouts of the soldiery. Forthwith the army entered

1 True and Impartial Narration concerning the Army's Preservation of the King; Rushworth; Journals; Herbert. 2 Perfect Politician.

into a solemn engagement not to disband or divide until they had overthrown the present Presbyterian government. Fairfax, Cromwell, Ireton, Hammond, and other officers of rank, waited upon the king. That their demeanour was respectful is certain; but nearly everything else that passed at this meeting, or these meetings, is involved in doubt.

On the 10th of June, while parliament was voting that no part of the army should come within forty miles of the capital, the whole of that army marched upon London, sending out manifestoes, collecting addresses of confidence from several counties, and demanding the speedy purgation of parliament. On the 15th of June, from their head-quarters at St. Alban's, the army formally accused Denzil Hollis, Massey, Stapleton, and eight other members of the commons. The house repeated its commands to the army not to advance. The army advanced immediately upon Uxbridge, and thereupon the "eleven members” went and hid themselves. The house then voted that the army was, in very deed, the army of England, and to be treated with all respect and care; and they sent propositions to the general, which induced him to remove his head-quarters from Uxbridge to Wycombe. This slight movement gave wondrous courage to the eleven accused members, who came forth from their hiding places to their seats in the house, accusing their accusers, and demanding a trial; but very soon they lost heart, and obtained leave of absence and the speaker's passport to go out of the kingdom.

Meanwhile the king had been removed from Newmarket to Royston, from Royston to Hatfield, the Earl of Salisbury's house; from Hatfield to Woburn Abbey, and thence to Windsor Castle. By means of his confidential attendants he opened or continued a very secret negotiation with Cromwell, Ireton, and other chief officers.

The Presbyterians were now making a last effort to regain the ascendency. The army and the Independent residents in the city had demanded that the command of the London militia should be put into other hands. The Presbyterians not only refused, but chose this very moment for getting up a petition, calling for the suppression of all conventicles. At the same time they exhibited for signature in Guildhall another paper, which, after reciting the Covenant, engaged the subscribers of all degrees to do their utmost to keep away the army, and bring the king to Westminster. One hundred thousand signatures were set to this paper; and a few days after a disorderly rabble surrounded the Houses of Parliament, and caused such terror there that both speakers and many members fled to the army for protection. Fairfax, who had advanced

with the army to Hounslow Heath, there met the fugitive Independent members. Besides the two speakers, there were fifteen lords and 100 commoners. The general forthwith published a declaration, "showing the grounds of his present advance to the city of London." The Presbyterian Londoners, being able to do nothing better, sent to entreat for a pacification, and to offer their quiet submission to the general.

On the 16th of August Fairfax came to Westminster, with the speakers of both houses, and the rest of the expelled lords and commoners. The speakers, in the name of the whole parliament, gave thanks to the general, and as a gratuity, a month's pay was given to his army. On the next day Fairfax and Cromwell marched into the city, and settled the question of the militia. "Thus was the Presbyterian faction depressed. Never, perhaps, did a great party fall with less honour."'

While these things were in progress the council of officers had prepared their "Proposals," wherein they provided for the re-settlement of the kingdom upon principles of the largest liberty, both civil and religious, and of a glorious toleration which Europe had not yet seen even in theory. The great fault of this theory was, that it too much overlooked the passions, prejudices, and intellectual condition of the people. Ireton is generally considered to have been the principal author of this remarkable paper; but he acted concurrently with his father-in-law, Cromwell, who entertained the highest and justest notions about religious liberty, freedom of trade, and the other points which reflect the most honour upon this scheme. In many respects, notwithstanding the republican tendencies of Ireton, this constitution would have left Charles more power and dignity as a king than the Presbyterian parliament had ever thought of giving him. But Charles, encouraged by Lord Lauderdale and by other Presbyterians, as well in Scotland as in England, would give no direct answer to

May, Breviary of the History of the Parliament of England. The Presbyterians have been historically worried by other parties for the opposite faults of having broken the unity of the church, by multiplying schisms, and having endeavoured to preserve that unity by excessive strictness and intolerance. These charges neutralize each other; and the example of Scotland, where the fullest toleration co-exists with a singular unanimity in the essentials of doctrine and church polity, seems practically to refute both. The times were evidently such as to produce a strong feeling among sober men in favour of either dio cesan or, as Presbyterianism may he called, parochial Episcopacy. The inordinate multiplication of sects so manifestly weakened the cause of the Reformation, that their divisions were believed to be exasperated by Jesuits in disguise. The state of England in this respect seemed full of warning to the Scotch, and is well described by a Covenanting historian of the present day:

"It is readily admitted that many of the Independents were men of high respectability, both for learning and piety, whose labours in congregations and parish churches (in these cases they did not spurn an endowment) proved a very great blessing

the proposals when they were submitted to him. At times he entertained Ireton and the other commissioners of the army "with very tart and bitter discourses;" at other times he attempted to cajole them. Colonel Rainsborough, in the middle of the conferences, stole away in disgust, and, posting to the army, declared to officers and men that the king was again playing his double or treble game.3 3 And in fact Charles at this very moment was negotiating not only with Lauderdale and the Scottish commissioners, with Cromwell and Ireton, and with other officers

who entertained very different views, but also. with the English Presbyterians and with the Irish Catholics-to each and all of whom he was making promises and paying compliments. Nor could he control his own temper sufficiently to cloak his designs. One day he exclaimed to Ireton-"I shall play my game as well as I can!" Ireton instantly replied "If your majesty have a game to play, you must give us also liberty to to England. But such men formed but one of the many sects which then prevailed. The country, in a short time, literally swarmed with motley groups, many of which published the grossest heresies, and by their fanaticism and excesses, proved a disgrace to religion. As the natural result of such a spirit, it had become common among them to deride a stated ministry as a system of pious fraud and priestcraft. And accordingly our modern Independents, while they frequently refer to England under Cromwell, as the theatre on which their system of ecclesiastical polity was tested with triumphant success, find themselves under the necessity of distinguishing betwixt 'Independents properly so called, and a crowd of anomalous fanatics

Baptists and Fifth Monarchy Men, Seekers and Antinomians, Levellers and Ranters-all monstrous, all prodigious things.' No wonder that the Presbyterians of Scotland regarded the progress of such a sectarianism with aversion and alarm."-History of the Church of Scot. during the Commonwealth, by Rev. James Beattie. 2 One of the clauses was-" All monopolies, old or new, and the restraints to the freedom of trade, to be taken off." 3 Sir John Berkeley, Memoirs.