the parliamentarians deemed all their proceedings to be now fully justified, and even the royalists began to lose respect for the character of their master, and look upon his cause as desperate.

3. Fairfax's campaign in the West, June--Sept., 1645. On the 20th, Fairfax set out again for the western counties, where the king possessed nearly all the towns. Goring, at his approach, raised the siege of Taunton, though not before that "constant town" had been reduced to great extremities. Fairfax had next to deal with the club-men, who embodied in thousands, turned now against the parliamentarians; partly by a show of force and partly by negotiation, they were dispersed. On the 10th of July, Goring being defeated at Langport, (Somerset), left his troops to disperse; and Grenville, the other royal commander, sent in his commission. Charles was now left without any organised forces in the West, except what were shut up in the towns. Of these, Bridgewater deemed impregnable, capitulated July 23, Bath on the 30th, and in a short time the whole chain of posts as far as Lyme, thus cutting off any support the king might have obtained from Devon and Cornwall. Rupert held Bristol, before which Fairfax and Cromwell sat down August 22; on the 10th of September the city was stormed, and the prince proposing terms of capitulation, they were agreed to. For this mean action, as Charles termed it, he sent his nephew a pass to quit the kingdom, which however he refused to act upon, but joined the king, and afterwards assisted in defending Oxford. Cromwell, in October, obtained possession of Winchester, and then proceeded to Basing House, which fell after a siege of four years. The royalist cause in the West, was not extinguished till the early part of the next year.

4. Movements of Charles after the battle of Naseby. For some time after leaving Leicester, the king wavered, sometimes proposing to join Montrose in the North, at others Goring in the West. Ultimately he marched to Hereford, and thence to Ragland castle, the seat of the Marquis of Worcester, who was the chief of his catholic supporters, and had levied at his own expense two regiments, under the command of his son the Earl of Glamorgan. Rupert met his uncle at Chepstow and counselled a peace, but Charles had hopes from the gallantry of Montrose, and the expected arrival of a large army from Ireland. But ill-news soon came. His three fortresses in the North-Carlisle, Pontefract, and Scarborough had fallen. From Cardiff he marched his forces to Newark, and summoned all loyal cavaliers to join him. But the project of uniting his forces with those of Montrose was ended, by news that Leslie at the head of the Scotch cavalry was in pursuit. Leaving Doncaster, for thus far he had gone, he

dashed forward into the associated counties, ravaging the open country of Cambridge and Huntingdon, and taking the town of Huntingdon on the 24th of August. On the 28th, Charles entered Oxford, his horse having taken great spoil from the lands of his enemies. Remaining but three days in that city, he left for Hereford, which city he entered in triumph, for the Scots under the Earl of Leven had raised the siege, being recalled to their own country in consequence of Montrose's victory at Kilsyth. After a second visit to Ragland, Charles, with what forces he could collect, set out to relieve Chester, the only port by which he could now maintain his communications with Ireland. When within sight of the city, he was attacked on Rowton Moor, (Sept. 24) by General Poyntz, and by a party of the besieging force, at the same time. The king was completely defeated, six hundred of his troopers slain, and one thousand made prisoners. He now withdrew to Denbigh, and thence by way of Bridgenorth to Newark, from which place he was compelled to steal out in the night to escape a blockade; he re-entered Oxford November 6.

5. Montrose wins the battle of Kilsyth: is totally defeated at Philiphaugh, 1645. Montrose, after his escape from Aberdeen, was for a time incapable of further action for want of followers. These however he again mustered, and was near capturing Argyle in his castle at Inverary; from that time to the end of January, 1645, the whole county of Argyle was mercilessly ravaged, the people slain, the villages and cottages fired, and the cattle driven off. In a battle at Inverlochy (Feb. 2), fifteen hundred of the Campbells were slain, and afterwards the Covenanters suffered defeat at Auldearn in May and Alford in July. After threatening Perth, where the parliament was sitting, Montrose crossed the Forth to march on Edinburgh or Glasgow, as the way might open. The Covenanters under Baillee came up with him on the 15th of August, at Kilsyth, near Stirling, and met with a terrible defeat. Nearly five thousand fell in the battle or in the pursuit, besides the loss of their artillery, arms, and ammunition. This victory put Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other places at the mercy of the victorious royalists. Many of the timid nobles now declared for the king, whilst the parliamentary leaders fled out of the country. The Scottish army in England was recalled, and David Leslie with the cavalry made all haste to cross the borders. But the victory of Kilsyth proved the ruin of the royal cause in Scotland, for most of the highland clans returned to their homes with the plunder they had taken, and some of the chiefs fell off because of jealousy. Though Montrose had won many victories, he held no fortresses, and nothing was under his control, but the forces that might happen to be with him. Leslie,

with his four thousand horse, having crossed the Tweed, deceived Montrose by making it appear that he intended to interpose his troops, between the enemy and the Highlands, but he soon doubled on his course and suddenly attacked the royalists at Philiphaugh on the 13th of September. The surprise was so complete, that only Montrose and a few followers escaped to the Highlands, where the leader, at the command of the king, embarked for the continent. His force was annihilated, for those who were made prisoners suffered death, in retaliation for the barbarities which they had committed.

SECTION XXI.-PROCEEDINGS OF THE LONG

PARLIAMENT, 1646.

1. Charles's application to treat is rejected, because of the discovery of a secret treaty with the Irish, Jan. 15, 1646. Charles had in December made overtures to be permitted to send commissioners with propositions that should be "the foundation of a happy and well-grounded peace". On a refusal, he repeated his desire, and again on the 15th of January, another effort was made with a like result. The parliament had grounds for its refusal, for a copy of a secret treaty of alliance between the king and the Irish Catholics, had been in the hands of the committee of the two kingdoms for three months. By this treaty ten thousand of the Irish rebels, under the Earl of Glamorgan, were to be landed at Chester for the king's service, and to be supported by two-thirds of the Irish ecclesiastical revenues, so long as the war lasted: that for this aid, Charles promised the abolition of the penal laws against the Catholics; full liberty for their worship; and the acknowledgement of their right to the churches and lands which they had possession of. The papers containing this information had been found in the carriage of the catholic archbishop of Tuam, and after being laid before parliament were made public. As soon as Ormond heard that the affair was known to the committee in London, he committed Glamorgan to prison on a charge of treason. It was now that the Earl produced the commissions he had received from the king, but his royal master disavowed the transaction, and wrote to the parliament affirming that he had merely granted a commission to raise men for his service, but no power to capitulate anything concerning religion, or any property belonging either to the church or laity.

How far Charles was truthful in this matter, may be gathered from the following paragraph from Lingard, who gives the sub

stance of the original documents, as a proof of "the subtleties and falsehood to which he could occasionally descend".

"For this purpose, Herbert (now created Earl of Glamorgan,) was furnished--1, with a commission to levy men, to coin money, and to employ the revenues of the crown for their support: 2, with a warrant to grant on certain conditions to the Catholics of Ireland, such concessions as it was not prudent for the king or the lieutenant openly to make: 3, with a promise on the part of Charles to ratify whatever engagements his envoy might conclude, even if they were contrary to law: 4, and with different letters from the pope, the nuncio, and the several princes from whom subsidies might be expected. But care was taken that none of these documents should come to the knowledge of the council. The commission was not sealed in the usual manner: the names of the persons to whom the letters were addressed were not inserted; and all the papers were in several respects informal: for this purpose, that the king might have a plausible pretext to deny their authenticity in the event of a premature disclosure."

2. Propositions offered to Charles at Newcastle, July 23, 1646. The king, after placing himself in the hands of the Scottish army, wrote to the parliament to inform them that he had left Oxford because it was no fit place for treating, and that he had no intention to continue the war any longer; that he would give contentment to both kingdoms, and "since the settling of religion ought to be the chiefest care, his majesty most earnestly and heartily recommends to his two Houses of parliament all the ways and means possible for speedily finishing this pious and necessary work; and particularly that they take the advice of the divines of both kingdoms, assembled at Westminster". The militia, he added, might be settled as was offered in the treaty at Uxbridge. Charles had already been at Newcastle two months, before the six commissioners from the parliament arrived with the propositions coucluded upon by the House. Hume says, they were little worse than what had been insisted on before the battle of Naseby. The following demands show bowever that they were sufficiently humiliating. Charles was called upon to adopt the Covenant; to abolish entirely the episcopal church; to surrender to parliament for twenty years the army and navy; to exclude seventy-one of his friends from any amnesty, and all his friends who had been in arms from any public employment, during the pleasure of parliament. The other conditions were the same in substance as those offered to the king before. Ten days was the time allotted for negotiation; at the expiration of that period, Charles informed the commissioners that it was impossible to return an unqualified assent to such proposals, as without explana tion he could not see how much of the ancient constitution was to be preserved; that a personal conference was necessary to a

perfect understanding; and that for this purpose he would proceed to Westminster, when he received an assurance that he could do so with honor and safety.

3. The disposal of the king's person voted to be in the parliament, Sept. 24, 1646. The king's refusal to treat created great heats in both kingdoms. In Scotland, the general assembly forbad his entry into that kingdom, unless he should first have taken the Covenant. Great jealousy grew up between the English parliament and the Scotch army. It had been voted that the English had no further need of the Scottish army, and complaints were made of their holding the fortresses of the North. The Scots on their part called for a settlement of moneys due to them according to agreement, and in August sent commissioners offering to surrender all the places they held, and to withdraw from England. Two questions were now raised: how to pay off the arrears due to the Scots? and how the king's person was to be disposed of? The Scots claimed £700,000 as arrears due; the Commons agreed to pay but £400,000; one half before the army left England, the other at the expiration of two years; the money to be raised by the sale of bishops' lands. This arrangement was completed on the 1st of September. In the debate on the second question, all parties grew warm. The Scots, it was maintained, could not keep the king, for they were but auxiliaries in the war, who thought of nothing but their pay, and receiving this it was for them to leave a country where they were no longer wanted. But the Scots contended that Charles was their king too, and that they therefore had an interest in the royal person. The strife grew so warm, that the parliament voted money to keep up the army for the next six months, by way of intimidating their opponents. To prevent further quarrel, the presbyterian leaders gave way, having persuaded themselves that if the king were once in the hands of the parliament, the army might be disbanded and the power of the Independents broken. The Scots moreover were not altogether indisposed to a speedy settlement, for a fear had grown up in Scotland, that if Charles came to that kingdom it might breed disturbances; for Hamilton, the king's friend, and lately released from imprisonment, had rallied round him nearly all the higher nobility and moderate men. A vote on the 24th of September, ended the controversy, by deciding "that to the parliament alone belongs the right of disposing of the king's person".

SECTION XXII. THE CIVIL WAR IN 1646.

1. Fairfax completes the reduction of the West, March 14, 1646. At the commencement of the campaign, there was but