understood, and the stream of history remains unbroken, the speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, and the Liberty of Prophesying, will shine together matchless monuments of the oracular wisdom, the inspired forecast, of human genius impregnated by religion. In May, 1646, the King put himself into the hands of the Scotch before Newark, and all serious opposition to the Parliament ceased shortly afterwards. It was voted that "this kingdom had no farther need of the army of their brethren the Scots in this kingdom;" and commissioners were appointed to guard the King in Holmby-House. The Parliament had reached its zenith. Its declension was commenced, its ruin virtually effected. The pressure of common danger being at an end, the divisions became prominent. The Parliament was Presbyterian, the Army Independent. The former secretly dreaded the consequences of their own victories; they devised means of getting rid of their armed servants; and ordered them on the service of Ireland;-the latter saw through the design, knew their own strength, and refused to go. It was clear that there was no hope of preserving religious liberty from the rigid uniformity of Presbyterian discipline, except by keeping the asserters of freedom of conscience in arms together. A feverish year (1647) succeeded. Hollis and the Presbyterians laboured to effect the disbanding of the forces; resolutions were entered into; the army petitioned, and the resolutions were erased from the journals. In June, Cornet Joyce carried off the King from Holmby to Newmarket, saying, as his warrant, "that it was the pleasure of the army," and shewing as his commission five hundred troopers. Whoever will peruse Sir John Berkley's Memorial, the genuineness of which is not disputed, and the tenor of which is strictly corroborated by all the best contemporary writers, must confess that, according to all human probability, it was owing to Charles's infatuated obstinacy and fatal presumption alone, that he was not at this time restored to his throne in peace and safety, if not in splendour. There is no more reason to doubt the sincerity of the proposals made to him by the Parliament and the army, than there is to deny the plain meaning of any other document in history. The Parliament were afraid of a coalition between the King and the army; and the army, in spite of its apparent union, had many elements of dissension within itself, which would lead the ruling officers to dread an actual collision with the established civil power, with all London at its back. Charles saw his own VOL. II. PART II. 2 C personal importance, and believed it to be greater than it was. You cannot be without me," said he on many occasions : you cannot settle the nation but by my assistance.' No one has ever accused Ireton of hypocrisy ; and Ireton drew up the proposals, and was himself the commissioner. Charles saw that such a game might possibly be played as to set the army against the Parliament, and the Scotch against the army, and that he might triumph on the ruins of all three. He thought he could play this game himself, without one single qualification for the purpose. He had not the common prudence to reserve his secret in his letters. He wrote to the Queen "that he put himself up to sale, and they that bid highest for him should have him." This letter was intercepted. All hopes of a bonû fide arrangement with the King were abandoned; it was clear that he could not force himself to act with the sincerity which alone could have saved him. The dissensions between the army and the Parliament increased: the soldiers formed themselves into committees, and drew up petitions, then addresses, then remonstrances, then resolutions; at length they demanded the expulsion of eleven of the leading members of the Presbyterian party in the House of Commons; the Parliament was expiring in impotent struggles; the vigorous vote of one day rendered ridiculous by the pusillanimous recantation of the next; even the city apprentices had power to control their measures. The army approached London, then retired, and then approached again. The Parliament intreated, trembled, blustered. Their last hopes were centred in Fairfax, and Fairfax never deceived them. He was the most popular man in the country, and the soldiers obeyed him; but he knew that the greater part of the army was not of his opinion in matters of religion or government, and he was obliged to rule them with leniency and address in order to rule them at all. That he was the passive general wholly managed by Cromwell and Ireton, is one of the numberless flourishes of Hume's spite, for which he could quote no authority, and which indeed is contradicted by the plainest documents. When intelligence of the force put upon the Parliament by the apprentices came to Reading, the army marched; at Hounslow they were met by the Speakers of both Houses, who were received with acclamations. A feeble attempt at defence was made, which melted away at the sight of the troops, and the army marched quietly into the city, replaced the Speakers and the seceding members at Westminster, and appointed a day for a solemn thanksgiving for the restoration of the liberty of the Parliament. The King was brought to Hampton Court; negotia tions were again opened with him, and he again desperately tried to play off the army and Parliament against each other. His hour of salvation was almost expired. A new and tre mendous party had arisen, new in its present magnitude, tremendous in its decisive tone, which was prepared to march through all dangers, against all opposition, straight forward to a republic. It was led and animated by master spirits; and if human wisdom and virtue could have controlled circumstances, Vane, Harrington, Sydney, and Milton, would have done it. Their chief strength was amongst the soldiers. Cromwell began to be suspected of secret dealings with the King; it was believed that he was to be made commander-inchief of the army for life, created Earl of Essex, and to have the garter. That much of this was true cannot be doubted from Charles's own writings; to what extent it was entertained by Cromwell it is impossible to discover. The agitators of the armed committees intimated to him, in no obscure terms, their suspicions of his treachery; and accompanied them with the most terrible menaces. With the marvellous dexterity which characterized this singular man, he took his part,-conciliated the army by the most ardent protestations, withdrew himself from intercourse with the King, and the unfortunate Charles was lost for ever. The King, escaped, surrendered himself, was imprisoned; common prudence might have saved him; but he could put no confidence except in favourites, and his favourites had no qualities but zeal and rashness to offer him. The diversion in the north of England took place, which the absurd fanaticism of the Scotch concurred with the rapidity of Cromwell to stifle in its birth. The Parliament seized the opportunity of the absence of the army to negotiate with the King again; the only hope for either of them was to cement a close union with each other, and to make a vigorous appeal to the great body of the nation. The Parliament was more in fault than the King that nothing came of this; he offered what might well have sufficed for the season at least; they would not permit him to use the Common Prayer even in his private chapel. Yet it must be owned, that at this very time this misguided Prince was separately treating with the Scotch and the army also. The correspondence was detected; the treaty broke off; the army returned victorious and omnipotent. The King sent to Cromwell again; Cromwell would not see the messenger, but said that he did not dare to appear openly for fear of the soldiers. Charles's last act of perverse folly was to write a letter to his Queen, to assure her, among other things, "that as to a silken garter for Cromwell, he should be more disposed to fit his neck with a hempen halter." The letter, like all his others, was intercepted. In the end of 1648 the fate of the King was settled, by the prevalence of the republican party. His behaviour during the short remainder of his life was magnanimous. He indulged in no useless invective, he sunk into no unmanly weakness. He had to sustain a part of sorrow and of difficulty, for which he have could had no preparation, and he bore himself in it so well, that his bitterest foes could not refuse to him the tribute of their personal admiration. -Nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it He gave his enemies no advantage over his character; on the contrary, his sufferings created him friends from amongst those who had been his adversaries in the day of his prosperity. His dethronement procured him an affection, which nothing else could have done; his errors were forgotten, his virtues magnified; his weakness was power, and his death a victory. We do not wish to engage in any display of casuistry upon the quality of this memorable event. The legality of it is out of the question. The subject matter far transcends the jurisdiction and comprehension of municipal law; it must be justified or condemned on deeper and more elementary principles. It is possible, indeed, that its justification may be made good by an uncertain and dangerous logic; but there is one fact requisite as a preliminary to a discussion of its intrinsic merits, namely, a real and irresistible necessity for it; and the necessity for the execution of Charles has never yet been proved. The Monarchy of England, which had subsisted entire for 850 years, was now formally extinguished. It was voted, "that the House of Peers in Parliament is useless and dangerous, and ought to be abolished;" and it was resolved, upon the question by the Commons of England in Parliament assembled," that it hath been found by experience, and this House doth declare, that the office of a King in this nation, and to have the power thereof in any single person, is unnecessary, burthensome, and dangerous to the liberty, safety, and public interest of the people of this nation, and therefore ought to be abolished *." The Parliament re-admitted many of its members to their places. Its power and independence seemed to revive. It made many admirable arrangements in * Whitel, 1648, Feb. 6, 7. the interior economy of the country, some of which we retain to this day, and others were the foundations of more elaborate measures in the subsequent times. Some of its acts were, indeed, absurdly severe; but, perhaps, on the settlement of a new form of government in the face of so many difficulties, a degree of rigour was absolutely necessary, which under other circumstances would be wholly unjustifiable. Nevertheless, the Act against seditious words was ill advised; its cruelty made it nugatory, and men, like Lilburne, who might fairly have been punished for a misdemeanor, escaped with popularity and impunity when indicted for a treason. The name of the Parliament again became terrible at home and abroad, and their incessant labours on a work of infinite intricacy were marked with prudence and vigour, and attended with invariable success. Hume, with the same spirit of candour and discernment, which prompted him to declare, that "Milton's prose writings were disagreeable, although not defective in genius," says of the Republicans who directed the Parliament at this time, that "these men had not that large thought, nor those comprehensive views, which might qualify them for acting the part of legislators; selfish aims and bigotry chiefly engrossed their attention." If Sir Henry Vane, Algernon Sydney, and Henry Marten, were not qualified for acting the part of legislators for a new republic, what sort or mould of men, we should like to know, did Mr. Hume think would be fitted for that task? Were these men, and their great penman, the blind Dante of England, selfish? Were they bigoted to any thing else, except an unconquerable desire of the dominion of reason in government, and an aspiration after the universality of freedom amongst mankind? From the execution of the King to the forcible dissolution of the Parliament, there passed something more than four years. They are years fraught with the deepest interest, with the most pregnant lessons. They should be studied with an intensity proportioned to the rareness of the instance. The true and enlightened lover of our admirable Constitution will find in them warnings and examples on the right hand and on the left. We should profit by both. It is a doubt whether the Republicans were answerable for the Dutch war: if they were, although it was clearly a bad and pernicious policy, as far as it weakened the antagonists of the growing power of France, yet as a measure towards the balancing of the army by the weight of a victorious navy, it was then, and it would be now, and at all times, for an island like England, both wise, and just, and honourable. The conscientious refusal of Fairfax to march |