by stirring up against themselves the forces they disbanded, was by a self-denying vote in the house: "That because commanders in the army had much pay, and members of parliament should keep to the service of the house, therefore none of the latter should be members of the army." This put out at once the Earls of Essex and Manchester, the two generals, and Sir William Waller, a valiant major-general, with many colonels; and to avoid suspicion, Cromwell himself was put out at the first. They then chose Sir Thomas Fairfax General, as being neither too great to be commanded by the parliament, nor too subtil for Cromwell to make a tool of. He being chosen, Cromwell's men could not be without him and therefore the self-denying vote must be thus far dispensed with, that Cromwell may be in the army, though no other member of the house were allowed it; and so he was made lieutenant-general.

queen

The army being thus new modelled, was really in the hands of Cromwell, though seemingly under Fairfax's command. Not long after the change, was the battle at Naseby, A. D. 1645, where the king's army was totally routed and put to flight, and about 5000 taken prisoners, with all the king's ordnance and carriage, and abundance of his letters to the and others in his cabinet. These letters the parliament printed, thinking they contained such things as greatly clouded the reputation of his word and cause. Cromwell in the army did all, and chose almost all the officers. He first made Ireton commissary-general; and by degrees headed the greatest part of the army with Separatists of several denominations, and united all together by the point of liberty of conscience. Sir Henry Vane procured the house to disband almost all the honest county forces and garrisons, which might have opposed them in their designs, and so the army went on with little fear of opposition. The next design of Vane and Cromwell was, to use the army to model the parliament. With this aim they stirred up the house to pass some votes, which they knew would be most displeasing to the army, and then stirred up the army to the deepest resentment. The parliament voted, That part of the army should go to Ireland. At Triploe-Heath they entered into an engagement to hold together, and were drawing up a declaration of their grievances. Colonel Harley acquainted the house with it. Cromwell denied it, although deep in the secret, as he afterwards acknowledged. The parliament ordered all that were faithful to forsake them;

which several officers, and many common soldiers, did; but these not being able to make a body to resist those that remained, it proved a great addition to their strength: For now, all that were against them being gone, they filled up their places with men of their own mind, and so were ever after the more unanimous.-Upon this, Cromwell and his adherents advanced in their design, came nearer the city, and drew up an impeachment against eleven of the most active members of the house; and forced the house to exclude them, as under accusation, but let fall their suit, and never proved them guilty. The city now took courage, and were for defending the parliament; but the army speedily advancing, their hearts failed them, and they let the army enter the city in triumph. Whereupon, several of the accused members fled into France. A. D. 1647.

As for the king, when Oxford was besieged by the parliament's forces, having no army left, he escaped to the north, and cast himself upon the Scots, who lay there with an army. The Scots were puzzled how to act in this critical juncture : After long consultations, the terror of the conquering army made them deliver him to the parliament's commissioners, upon condition that his person should be preserved in safety and honour, and that their army should have half the pay due to them advanced immediately. The parliament hereupon appointed Col. Greaves, and Major-General Brown, to attend the king at Holmby-House in Northamptonshire. Col. Joice by concert with the leading part of the army, fetched him thence, and kept him amongst them, till they came to Hampton-Court, where he was guarded by Col. Whalley. The army fawned upon the king at first; blamed the austerity of the parliament, who had denied him the at-tendance of his chaplains, and of his friends; gave them liberty to come to him, and pretended that they would protect him from the incivilities of the parliament and the presbyterians. But all on a sudden they began to cry for justice upon him. A council of agitators was chosen, who drew up a paper called, The agreement of the people, as the model of a new commonwealth. Cromwell seemed to be against them; and while they were contending, a letter came to Col. Whalley, from an unknown hand, intimating a design of these agitators to surprise and murder the king; which most people thought was contrived by Cromwell, to frighten him out of the land. On the sight of this letter, the king secretly escaped to the Isle of Wight, committing him

self

self to Col. Hammond, Governor of the castle. Here Cromwell had him in a pinfold, and was more secure of him than before. While he was confined, several armies were raised in his favour, but were all defeated. At length the parliament sent him some propositions, with a view to his restoration. Some of them he granted, and others he refused. The chief thing he objected to was, The utter abolishing of episcopacy, and the alienating of bishops, and deans and chapter-lands. Upon which Mr. Marshal, Mr. Vines, and Dr. Seaman, were sent down as commissioners to discourse with him about it: they debated the matter with Abp. Usher, Dr. Hammond, Dr. Sheldon, and others of the king's divines. The debates were printed, and each party thought they had the better. Abp. Usher then offered the king his Reduction of Episcopacy to the form of Presbytery; which he would have accepted, and the parliament proposed sending for him up, in order to a personal treaty. But Cromwell and his confidants, seeing all their designs likely to be disappointed, sent Col. Pride to the house with a party of soldiers, who guarded the door. Such members as were to their purpose they let in, others they turned away, and some they imprisoned. The remainder of the house was henceforward called the Rump. The secluded and imprisoned members published their vindication; and some of them would afterwards have pushed into the house, but the guard of soldiers kept them out; and the Rump were cried up for the only honest men. They passed a vote to establish a government without a king and house of lords; and so the lords dissolved, and these commons sat and did all alone. They erected a high-court of Justice, brought the king to his trial, condemned him, erected a scaffold at WhitehallGate, and there before a large concourse of people beheaded him, Jan. 30, 1649. The Lord General Fairfax stood by all the while, full of regret, but tricked and overpowered by his lieutenant Cromwell, who (it was said) kept him praying and consulting, till the stroke was given. But soon afterwards, when war was determined against Scotland, he laid down his commission, and Cromwell became general in his stead.

The ministers all this time generally preached and prayed against disloyalty. They had drawn up a writing to the lord general, which was printed, declaring their abhorrence of all violence against the person of the king, and urging him and his army to have no concern in it. This petition

they

they presented to him, when the king was in danger, subscribed by near sixty of the presbyterian ministers of London, (whose names are below *) together with many country ministers. So unjustly were the presbyterians accused as regicides.

Thus these intestine commotions came to an issue, little thought of at first by any that began them, which cannot but surprise all future generations.

SECT. II.

Reflections on Public Transactions, from the Death of Charles I. to the Restoration of Charles II.

THE

HE king being taken out of the way, Cromwell proposes a Commonwealth, till he had laid a sufficient foundation for his own advancement. The Rump parliament drew up a form of an engagement, to be subscribed by all of eighteen years of age and upwards, viz. "I do proimise to be true and faithful to the commonwealth as it is now established, without a king or house of lords." Without taking this engagement no man could have the benefit of suing another at law, nor hold any mastership in the universities, nor travel above a certain distance from his house, &c. Mr. Vines, and Dr. Rainbow were hereupon put out

N. B. The two names printed in italic are not in the copy of the original

paper printed at the time, in which the number is 57.

of

of their headships in the university, and Mr. Sympson and Mr. Sadler put in their places. Dr. Reynolds also was cast out of the deanry_of Christ-Church Oxon, and Dr. Owen succeeded him. The Covenant was now laid aside, as an almanack out of date. Many episcopal divines wrote for the engagement, and pleaded for taking it, upon the same distinction of De Facto & De Jure, as hath since been so celebrated among us. But the moderate church party and the presbyterians refused it.

Charles II. was now in Holland, and had been proclaimed king by the Scots, who resolved to support his cause. He had also many warm friends in England. A little before the battle at Worcester, several persons were seized in London for holding correspondence with him: many of them were Presbyterian ministers, who for meeting together to contrive how to raise a small sum of money for Masscy's relief in Scotland, were charged with plotting against the government. Eight of them were sent to the Tower. Mr. Arthur Jackson, Dr. Drake, Mr. Watson, Mr. Love, Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Thomas Case, Mr. Ralph Robinson, and Mr. Rich. Heyrick. Mr. Nalton and Mr. Caughton fled into Holland. Mr. Love was tried in a court of justice, condemned and beheaded, and with him Mr. Gibbons, a worthy gentleman, for the same cause. This blow struck deep at the root of the new commonwealth. The rest of the ministers were released, upon Mr. Jenkin's recantation and submission to the government.

Cromwell, being flushed by his success against the royalists in Scotland, thought he might now do what he pleased. Having thus far seemed to be a servant to the parliament, he was at length for setting up for himself. In order to this, he first endeavoured to make them odious to his army, and then treated privately with many of them to dissolve themselves, that another free parliament might be chosen. But they perceived the danger, and were for filling up their number by new elections. Impatient of further delay, he took Harrison and some soldiers with him, and in a sort of гарture went to the house, and reproved the members for their faults. Pointing to Vane, he called him a juggler; and to

*The solemn league and covenant was a renunciation of popery and prelacy, and a mutual bond, by which the subscribers engaged upon oath, to oppose all religious innovations, and to assist each other in defending their liberties,

Henry