The change of the possession of his person was at first favourable to the king's treatment, and might have been useful to his interests, had he been faithful to them him self. Cromwell and Ireton offered him terms, in which it was neither required that episcopacy should be abo• fished, nor the militia entirely detached from the crown : the king objected to the want of positive security re specting the church, and to the exception of seven per sons from amnesty, whom it is clear that he could have well rewarded, had they been driven to exile. "You cannot," said Charles to the Independents, "you cannot do without me ; you will fall to ruin if I do not sustain you." This, it is true, was but a temporary obstinacy, but his hopes were for ever blasted : The Independents, by the disclosure of an intercepted letter to the queen, in which the insincerity of his offers to that party were avowed, as well as his intention to close with the Scotch, with whom, as with the English Presbyterians, he had been maintaining a negotiation at the same time.
His situation at Hampton court became every day more irksome and formidable after the failure of this treaty with Cromwell and the leaders of the army. Prompted by this inquietude, he escaped on the f lth of November, with three attendants, Berkely, Ashburn ham, and Leg, and travelling all night reached Titch field next day, where it was impossible he could be concealed. Having attempted in vain to escape by sea, he was obliged to entrust his personal safety to Ham mond, the governor of the Isle of Wight. a man noto riously dependent on Cromwell, who conducted him to Carisbrook castle, with demonstrations of respect, but in reality as a prisoner. During the king's confinement in this forlorn situation, the rising power of Cromwell was threatened by the turbulence of his own instruments, the agitators of the army, who began to project the wildest forms of popular government. But the level lers, (so they were called.) were speedily cured of their enthusiasm, by the rough, but dextrous hand of Crom well, who, after drawing the whole army out in review, put himself at the head of some faithful troops, boldly seized the ringleaders of the mutineers, and by a severe example reduced the rest to obedience. An opportu nity was embraced by Charles to renew his correspon dence with the general officers, but his emissary was received with contempt.
Charles began a new negotiation with the parliament, by communicating in a message from Carisbrook castle, an offer to resign, during his own life, the power of the militia, and the nomination to all the great offices of state, provided that after his demise, these prerogatives should revert to the crown. The parliament Nverc now certainly subservient to Cromwell, the Independents, and the army, and their treatment of this affair was se vere, as might be expected, from the victors to the van quished.
They returned him four proposals as preliminaries to all treaty; that the command of the militia should be vested in the two houses for twenty years, and should not be exerted afterwards without their consent; that the peers created at Oxford should be deprived of their titles ; and the parliament be empowered to adjourn from place to place. These terms were severe; but since the covenant was omitted, and the church reserved as an article susceptible of future modification, they at least spared the king's conscience in point of religion. Instead of closing with these preliminaries, Charles, who was not so closely watched at Carisbrook castle but that he could maintain a clandestine treaty with the Scotch, secretly agreed with their commissioners to confirm the covenant in parliament, and to establish the Presbyterian church, till it should be revised by the as sembly of divines. The Scotch, in return, engaged to assert and restore his authority by arms ; the aid of the Presbyterians in England, of Ormond in Ireland, and of the English royalists, was expected. When the En glish commissioners received his refusal to the prelimi naries, his guards were redoubled, and a resolution was adopted at the instigation of the Independents, that in the settlement of the nation no farther addresses should be made to Charles, nor any applications received from him. He was in effect dethroned.
This treaty of the Scotch with Charles was afterwards called the Engagement ; but though discontents had multiplied between the two kingdoms, it was found no easy matter to impose the engagement on the whole na tion. The Scotch royalists under Traquair and Callen der, (Montrose being absent,) were impatient for action; the moderate Presbyterians, under the Duke of Hamil ton, wished to restore the king and the power of the English Presbyterians. Argyle, at the head of the wild Presbyterians, and seconded by the church, de nounced the engagement as a deadly breach of the co venant, and protested against hostilities with England. Hamilton was appointed general of the new levies for the invasion of England, as David Lesly and the other of ficers could not act without the church's sanction. In the mean time, the English royalists and Presbyterians, now uniting against their military tyrants, rose in Wales, and in Kent, and Essex. In the former part of the coun try, they were overwhelmed by Cromwell, in the latter by Fairfax. But during the absence of the army, the Presbyterians resuming their freedom in parliament, opened a last treaty with Charles. Hamilton, an incapa ble leader at the head of an undisciplined army, entered England, but durst not unite his forces with those of the royalists under Langdale, because the latter had not taken the covenant. Cromwell did not fear with 8000 men, to attack their superior, but divided forces. Of Hamilton's army, only a small body under Callender, who disdained to surrender, made their escape back to Scotland. New
levies were raised by the Earl of Lanark, Hamilton's brother ; but the Earls of Argyle and Lothian, in the Highlands, and Cassilis and Eglinton in the west, march ed with their wild Presbyterians to Edinburgh, and in viting Cromwell, now victor on the borders of England, to the metropolis, conducted him thither in triumph ; and suppressing the engagement made by their coun trymen with Charles at Carisbrook Castle, renewed with the English general the solemn league and covenant.' In the absence of Cromwell, the treaty between Charles and a parliament unintimidated by military power, con tinued to proceed. After a long delay, he agreed to sur render the militia, the chief offices of state, and the govern ment of Ireland for twenty years; to accept of 100,0001. for the court of wards to acknowledge the parliamentary great seal, and to consult the two houses in the creation of peers. However willing that the royalists should com pound for their sequestrated estates, he refused to allow the proscription and exile of seven faithful adherents, whom the parliament excepted from amnesty. If ever we revere " his grey diserowned head,"t it is for this refusal, dictated by the remembrance of Strafford. His refusal to concede the abolition of Episcopacy, was an other point on which he split with parliament in this last chance for safety and the peace of his country. When we recollect the conduct of Henry IV. in a similar situ ation, and that he lost no esteem for probity as a man, nor for gallantry as a hero, by a public profession of a religion repugnant to his heart, we cannot but wish that Charles, to use the words of a spirited historian, had preferred the public welfare and his own interest, to the vain and perishable forms of religion. But allowing all propriety to his scruples, the merit of Charles is done away, even in this point, by the discovery, from his own correspondence, of his being utterly insincere in the treaty. His secret, but fixed intention, was to es cape to Ireland and renew the war. In one letter, he thus describes his motives to the Scottish treaty : " To deal freely with you, the great concession I made to day, was merely in order to my escape, of which, if I had not hopes, I would not have done; for then I could have returned to my straight prison without reluctance ; but now, I confess, it would break my heart, having done that which nothing but an escape could justify." Before this protracted treaty could be finished, the army returned exasperated by a second civil war, and breathing vengeance against the king, whom they con sidered its author. They demanded justice, not on meaner delinquents, but on Charles himself. His per son was again seized by the army, and removed from Newport to Hurst Castle, on the opposite Coast. The commons, although they had voted his concessions un satisfactory, now made a last effort in their own defence, and in that of Charles. They voted that his concessions were satisfactory. But next day Colonel Pride, at the head of two regiments, blockaded the house, and ex cluding by violence about 200 members, and leaving only 60 determined Independents, enforced a vote that the late concession to Charles had been illegal, and that their general's conduct was just and necessary. This violence upon parliament, was called Pride's purge, and the remnant of voters were called the rump parliament. To this assumption of government by a lawless and mi litary power, the awful and unexampled spectacle of a king publicly tried and condemned, by a court of his own subjects, closely succeeded. The interval from the 6th to the 20th of January 1649, was spent in preparations for his trial. A nigh court of justice was appointed by ordinance, consisting of 133 persons, named indifferently from the commons, the army, and the citizens, noted as well affected to the commonwealth. Bradshaw was ap pointed president, Coke solicitor for the people of Eng land. The court assembled in Westminster hall. Charles was conveyed from Hurst Castle to St James's. After he had been conducted by the mace bearer, to a chair placed within the bar, he arose, without deigning to un cover or show any respect for the court ; and when ar raigned by the solicitor, he touched his shoulder thrice with his cane, and admonished him to desist. He was accused of waging and renewing war against the par liament and the people; to establish tyranny instead of the limited regal power, with which he had been in trusted. When his defence was required, he demanded by what authority they sat upon him in judgment; said that he was responsible to God alone; that he was their lawful and hereditary sovereign ; that he had been seized by a military force in violation of public faith, while en gaged in a treaty with the two houses; that the Lords had not concurred in this violence, and that the Com mons, in whose name he was accused, themselves had been subdued by force of arms. That allowing the peo ple had a right to try him, their consent ought to be obtained from the highest to the lowest ; and, finally, that refusing to plead before an unlawful court, for ac tions which he could easily vindicate, he spoke not for himself alone, but in the name of the people of England. Thrice he was produced at the bar, and thrice denied the authority of the court. The evidence of his appear. ing in arms against the people was then gathered; and after his last request to have a conference with the two houses was refused, (it was supposed for the purpose of resigning his crown to his son,) sentence of treason was pronounced upon him, that his head should be se parated from his body on the third day.