The Works of Thomas Carlyle/Volume 6/Letter 49
The immeasurable Negotiations with the King, ‘Proposals of the Army,’ ‘Proposals of the Adjutators of the Army,’ still occupying tons of printed paper, the subject of intense debatings and considerations in Westminster, in Putney Church, and in every house and hut of England, for many months past,—suddenly contract themselves for us, like a universe of gaseous vapour, into one small point: the issue of them all is failure. The Army Council, the Army Adjutators, and serious England at large, were in earnest about one thing; the King was not in earnest, except about another thing: there could be no bargain with the King.
Cromwell and the Chief Officers have for some time past ceased frequenting his Majesty or Hampton Court; such visits being looked upon askance by a party in the Army: they have left the matter to Parliament; only Colonel Whalley, with due guard, and Parliament Commissioners, keep watch ‘for the security of his Majesty.’ In the Army, his Majesty’s real purpose becoming now apparent, there has arisen a very terrible ‘Levelling Party’; a class of men demanding punishment not only of Delinquents, and Deceptive Persons who have involved this Nation in blood, but of the ‘Chief Delinquent’: minor Delinquents getting punished, how should the Chief Delinquent go free? A class of men dreadfully in earnest;—to whom a King’s Cloak is no impenetrable screen; who within the King’s Cloak discern that there is a Man, accountable to a God! The Chief Officers, except when officially called, keep distant: hints have fallen that his Majesty is not out of danger.—In the Commons Journals this is what we read:
‘Friday 12th November 1647. A Letter from Lieutenant-General Cromwell, of 11th November, twelve at night, was read; signifying the escape of the King; who went away about 9 o’clock yesterday’ evening.[1]
Cromwell, we suppose, lodging in head-quarters about Putney, had been roused on Thursday night by express That the King was gone; had hastened off to Hampton Court; and there about ‘twelve at night’ despatched a Letter to Speaker Lenthall. The Letter, which I have some confused recollection of having, somewhere in the Pamphletary Chaos, seen in full, refuses to disclose itself at present except as a Fragment:
“FOR THE HONOURABLE WILLIAM LENTHALL, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS: THESE”
“Hampton Court, Twelve at night,
11th Nov. 1647.”
“Sir”—* * * * Majesty * * withdrawn himself * * at nine o’clock.
The manner is variously reported; and we will say little of it at present, but That his Majesty was expected at supper, when the Commissioners and Colonel Whalley missed him; upon which they entered the Room:—they found his Majesty had left his cloak behind him in the Gallery in the Private Way. He passed, by the back stairs and vault, towards the Water-side.
He left some Letters upon the table in his withdrawing room, of his own handwriting; whereof one was to the Commissioners of Parliament attending him, to be communicated to both Houses, “and is here enclosed.” * * *
We do not give his Majesty’s Letter ‘here enclosed’: it is that well-known one where he speaks, in very royal style, still every inch a King, Of the restraints and slights put upon him, —men’s obedience to their King seeming much abated of late. So soon as they return to a just temper, ‘I shall instantly break through this cloud of retirement, and show myself ready to be Pater Patriæ,’—as I have hitherto done.