est captains of all time, marched forward to assured success, achieving a series of brilliant victories, which speedily gave the royal cause its coup de grace.

The rout at Long Marston Moor in 1644 had sadly broken the spirit of the Cavaliers. The relentless and irresistible charge of Cromwell's "Ironsides" in the following year, at Naseby, completed the demoralization, and hopelessly scattered the adherents of the king.

Charles, after a hazardous and checkered existence of several months from the fatal battle of Naseby, finally determined to throw himself upon the clemency of the Scotch Puritans; and he accordingly repaired, in 1646, to their camp before Newark. Though they received him with every outward appearance of respect, the Scottish generals in reality made the monarch a captive, while they fell upon the consideration of the proper course to pursue towards him.

The Parliament, immediately upon learning the whereabouts of their runaway king, formally demanded his rendition to them by Scotland, on the ground that, though he was

certainly king both of Scotland and England, still, being in England, he was comprehended within the jurisdiction of that kingdom.* After considerable discussion, not without having incurred the suspicion of bribery,† the Scots handed Charles over to the Parliament. By them he was conducted to Holmby House in Northamptonshire, where he resided in easy confinement until his seizure by the army several months later, when he was removed to Hampton Court.

While the king was at Hampton, several events occurred which might have reseated him upon the throne, had he possessed the slightest political honesty or sagacity.

The Puritans were at this crisis divided into two ecclesiastical parties-the "Presbyterians," a sect of Scotch extraction, and the "Independents," a new-born organization, but very powerful, and strongly opposed to the Presbyterian policy. The Presbyterians having gotten the Parliament under their control, proceeded to abridge both civil and religious liberty to an almost unprecedented extent,

* Hume's Hist. of Eng., Vol. VII., p. 75. † Ibid., p. 77.

going certainly much further in the direction of arbitrary dictation than the prelates themselves had ventured to go. Milton had all along denounced their usurpations in the boldest and most eloquently emphatic manner; and now behind him the Independents ranged themselves as the opponents of intolerance. They differed also from the Presbyterians in their notions of church government, approaching very closely to modern Congregationalism.

Cromwell, Ireton, and other noted leaders of the army were decided Independents. Discovering that the event might prove that they had lavished their blood only to substitute one tyranny for another, they instantly decided to endeavor to win the king to proclaim amnesty, civil liberty, and toleration, as the price of reinstatement in his royalties;* or, that failing, to crush Charles, oust the Parliament, and establish a free commonwealth upon the basis of justice and impartial liberty.

After several interviews with their royal captive at Hampton Court, his haughtiness * Symmons' Life of Milton, p. 243.

and duplicity disgusted them; and discovering by his secret correspondence with the queen that no reliance could be placed upon his good faith, they determined to unite with the Parliament in bringing him to speedy trial and execution, perceiving that thus one, and the chief, obstacle to peace and liberty would be removed. Charles meantime had fled, upon the withdrawal of the protection of the army, from Hampton to the Isle of Wight, seeking there an asylum, but finding a close and rigorous prison.

But the Parliament having obtained some inkling of the Independent plot to effect their displacement from power, in their turn endeavored to negotiate a treaty with the king, which should place him at their head, and repossess him of a large part at least of what had been ravished from him by the victorious arms of the Commonwealth.

But the monarch's fatal obstinacy and singular opinion of his great importance, which could lead him to say, as Rushworth records, that it was in his power to turn the scale, and that that party must sink which he abandon

ed-he the dethroned king of an annihilated faction!-led him to repel all overtures with the remark, "I shall see you glad ere long to accept more equal terms. You cannot do You will fall to ruin if I do not

without me.

sustain you."

While negotiations were still pending between Parliament and the king, the army returned flushed with victory from several expeditions which had completely subdued all their enemies. Immediately, at Cromwell's suggestion, a remonstrance to the Parliament was drawn up, and signed by the council of general officers, demanding its dissolution, complaining of its usurpations, accusing it of treason to liberty and of riveting the old chains still tighter; requiring a more equal representation; and asserting that, though servants, they were entitled to represent these important points to their masters, who were themselves no better than the servants or trustees of the people. At the same time Cromwell's strategy insured the seizure of the king, and his strict confinement near the capital.

* Rushworth. † Hume's Hist. of Eng., Vol. VII., p. 127.