Suffolk, Lincoln, and Middleton. the lords Willoughby, Hunsdon, Berkeley, and Maynard. The civic officers were sent to the Tower, The city was ordered to find the one hundred thousand pounds voted for the army. Fairfax distributed different regiments about Whitehall and the houses of parliament for their protection, and others in the Strand, Holborn, and Southwark, to keep the city in quiet. His headquarters were moved to Putney, with forces at Chelsea and Fulham, On Sunday he and the officers attended the preaching of Hugh Peters, the army chaplain, at Putney Church, and this the independents were in full power, and the presbyterians signally humbled.
Before, and also whilst these events had been taking place, the army had made overtures to the king for peace, and a solid settlement of the kingdom. As we have seen, from the moment that the king came into their hands, they had treated him in a far different style to the presbyterians. He seemed, in his freedom of action, in the admission of his children and friends in his society, in the respect and even friendliness shown him, to feel himself a king again. There were many reasons why the independents should desire to close with the king. Though they had the army with them, they knew that the presbyterians were far more numerous. London was vehemently presbyterian, and the Scots were ready to back that party, because essentially the same in religion as themselves. The independents and all the dissenters who ranged themselves under their banners were anxious for religious liberty; the Scotch and English presbyterians had no more idea of such a thing as belonging to Christianity, than had the catholics or the church of England as represented by Charles and Laud. If they prevailed, a despotism, as iron and as illiberal, would be established, as that which they had fought to put down; nay, far more so, for it was a despotism based on a sour and ascetic view of religion, which had no taste or tolerance for the elegancies of life, or the intellectual amenities of literature. To a faith so gloomy and crabbed, Shakespeare was a godless stage-player, and Sydney and Spenser high priests of Baal, of vain and carnal imaginations. To save England from a regimen so barbarous, a fanaticism so curdling and congelant of all the nobler feelings and sunnier views of life and even of religion, was an object of extreme desire to all those who, with their own high tone of zeal and language, began to see the ampler light and breathe the milder atmosphere of Christ's gentle and beneficent faith.
From the moment that the king was received by the army, he seems to have won on the goodwill of the officers. Fairfax, on meeting him on his way from Holmby, kissed his hand, and treated him with all the deference due to the sovereign. Cromwell and Ireton, though they did not so for condescend, and kept a degree of distant reserve, as remembering that they had to treat Charles as an enemy, were soon softened, and Cromwell sent him assurances of his attachment, and of his desire to see his affairs set right. Many of the officers openly expressed commiseration of his misfortunes, and admiration of his real piety, and his amiable domestic character. It was not long before such relations were established with him, and with his confidential friends, Berkeley, Ashburnham, and Legge, that secret negotiations were commenced for a settlement of all the difficulties betwixt him and his people. The officers made him several public addresses expressive of their sincere desire to see a pacification effected; and Fairfax, to prepare the way, addressed a letter to the two houses, repelling the aspersion cast upon the army, of its being hostile to the monarchy, and avowing that "tender, equitable, and moderate dealings towards him, his family, and his former adherents," should be adopted to heal the feuds of the nation.
It has been the fashion to consider Cromwell as a consummate hypocrite, and to regard all that he did as a part acted, for the ultimate attainment of his own ends. This is the view which Clarendon has taken of him; but whatever he might do at a later period, everything shows that at this time both he and his brother officers were most really in earnest, and, could Charles have been brought to subscribe to any terms except such as gave up the nation to his uncontrolled will, at this moment his troubles would have been at an end, and he would have found himself on a constitutional throne, with every means of honour and happiness in his tower. Nothing more convincingly demonstrates this than the conditions which the parliament submitted to them. They, in fact, greatly resembled the celebrated conditions of peace offered at Uxbridge, with several propositions regarding parliament and taxation, which mark a wonderfully improved political knowledge and liberality in the officers. They did not even insist on the abolition of the hierarchy, but merely stipulated for the toleration of the other opinions, taking away all penalties for not attending church, and for attending what were called conventicles. The command of the army by parliament was to be restricted to ten years; only five of the royalist adherents were to be excluded from pardon, and some less objectionable mode for protecting the state against catholic designs than the present oppressive laws against recusants was to be devised.
Parliaments were to continue two years, unless dissolved earlier by their own consent, and were to sit every year for a prescribed term, or a shorter one, if business permitted. Rotten boroughs, or such as were insignificant, were to be disfranchised, and a greater number of members returned from the counties in proportion to the amount of rates, and all that regarded election of members or reforms of the commons should belong exclusively to the commons. There were very judicious regulations for the nomination of sheriffs and of magistrates; the excise was to be taken from all articles of life at once, and from all other articles very shortly; the land tax to be fairly and equally apportioned; the irritating maintenance of the clergy by tithes was to be done away with; suits at law to be made less expensive; all men to be made liable for their debts; and insolvent debtors, who had surrendered all their property to their creditors, were to be discharged.
It will be seen that even yet, we have not established so full and admirable a reform of parliament as this, and the terms regarding the church were such as the king was not likely to obtain from the presbyterians except through the parliament. The whole presented a system of government, which for liberality, broad toleration, wisdom of finance, and judicious balance of power betwixt the different estates of the government, the world had never yet had in idea, far less in example. Charles's own friends and advisers were
