575 the island did now, if not before, occur to him as suitable for his purpose. One inducement may have been that the Governor, young Colonel Robert Hammond, was a person whom the King had reason to believe as well disposed to him as any Parliamentarian officer. Hammond, indeed, was the nephew of the King's favourite chaplain, Dr. Henry Hammond; and, though he was one of Cromwell's admiring disciples, and had married a daughter of Hampden, his uncle's reasonings, or other influences, had begun of late to weaken his ardour. It had been with undisguised pleasure that, but a week or two before, he had left his post in the Army and gone to this quiet and distant governorship, where he might live in retirement and without active duty. What, then, was his horror when, on the morning of Saturday, Nov. 13, as he was riding along the road near his residence of Carisbrooke Castle, in the centre of the island, Sir John Berkley and Mr. Ashburnham presented themselves, and told him that the King had fled in their company from Hampton Court and desired to be his guest! "He grew so pale," says Berkley, "and fell into such a trembling, that I did really "believe he would have fallen from his horse; which "trembling continued with him at least an hour after, in "which he broke out into passionate and distracted ex"pressions, sometimes saying 'O gentlemen, you have "undone me."" He collected himself at length, however, and accepted the duty which fate had sent him. Crossing over, with Berkley and Ashburnham, to the Earl of Southampton's house of Titchfield on the mainland, where Charles had meanwhile been waiting with Legge, he paid his homage gravely enough; and, after some conversation, in which he promised to do all for his Majesty that might be consistent with his obedience to Parliament, he returned to the island, with the King in his charge, and Berkley, Ashburnham, and Legge in attendance. His letter, narrating what had happened, and asking instructions, was read in the two Houses of Parliament on Monday, Nov. 15.1 1 Berkley's Memoir, Harl. Miscell. IX. 479-483; Rushworth, VII. 871 874; Clar. 624-7; Parl. Hist. III. 785791. As usual, in the later Royalist FOURTH STAGE OF THE CAPTIVITY: IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT: NOV. 1647-NOV. 1648. Carisbrooke Castle, and the King's Letters thence-Parliament's New Method of the Four Bills-Indignation of the Scots; their Complaints of Breach of the Covenant-Army Rendezvous at Ware: Suppression of a Mutiny of Levellers by Cromwell, and Establishment of the Concordat with Parliament-Parliamentary Commissioners in the Isle of Wight : Scottish Commissioners also there: the King's Rejection of the Four Bills -Firmness of Parliament: their Resolutions of No Farther Addresses to the King: Severance of the Scottish Alliance-The Engagement, or Secret Treaty between Charles and the Scots in the Isle of Wight-Stricter guard of the King in Carisbrooke Castle : His Habits in his Imprisonment --First Rumours of The Scottish Engagement: Royalist Programme of a SECOND CIVIL WAR -Beginnings of THE SECOND CIVIL WAR: Royalist Risings: Cromwell in Wales: Fairfax in the South-east: Siege of Colchester-Revolt of the Fleet: Commotion among the Royalist Exiles abroad: Holland's attempted Rising in Surrey-Invasion of England by Hamilton's Scottish Army: Arrival of the Prince of Wales off the Southeast Coast: Blockade of the Thames-Consternation of the Londoners : Faintheartedness of Parliament: New Hopes of the Presbyterians: their Ordinance against Heresies and Blasphemies: their Leanings to the King Independents in a struggling minority: Charge of Treason against Cromwell in his absence-The Three Days' Battle of Preston and utter Defeat of the Scots by Cromwell: Surrender of Colchester to Fairfax: Return of the Prince of Wales to Holland: Virtual End of THE SECOND CIVIL WAR-Parliamentary Treaty with the King at Newport: Unsatisfactory Results-Protests against the Treaty by the IndependentsDisgust of the Army with the Treaty: Revocation of their Concordat with Parliament, and Resolution to seize the Political Mastery: Formation of a Republican Party-Petitions for Justice on the King: The Grand Army Remonstrance-Cromwell in Scotland: Restoration of the Argyle Government there: Cromwell at Pontefract: His Letter to Hammond-The King removed from the Isle of Wight to Hurst Castle -The Army again in possession of London. : Carisbrooke Castle, now mostly a ruin, but in Charles's time the chief fortified place in the Isle of Wight, stands almost in the centre of the island, close to the village of Carisbrooke, and near the town of Newport, which, although really accounts, it is Cromwell that had contrived the whole affair of the King's escape, both matter and form. Hammond's appointment to the Governorship of the island (Sept. 9) was Cromwell's doing, in anticipation of what might be needed; then he had stirred up the Agitators at Putney to threaten the King's life at Hampton Court; then he had warned the King, through Whalley, of the designs of the Agitators, so as to frighten him into flight; then, through Ashburnham or otherwise, he had suggested the Isle of Wight as the very place for the King to go to, and so had caught him in the prepared trap!! an inland town, communicates with the sea by a navigable river. Here, with the verdant island all round him, and fine views both of land and sea, Charles was to live for a whole year. Though it was November when he came into the island, a lady, as he passed through Newport on his way to Carisbrooke, could present him with a damask-rose just picked from her garden; and he was to see all the circle of seasons in that mild South-English climate, till November came round again.1 In a letter which Charles had left at Hampton Court, to be communicated to the two Houses, he had avowed that, though security from threatened violence was the immediate reason for his disappearance for a time into a place of retirement, yet another reason was his desire to extricate himself from a negotiation in which he felt that the "chief interests" concerned were not all represented. In the same spirit of eclecticism, with a word for each of the "chief interests," and a special show of solicitude for the Army, is a Letter sent by the King to the two Houses only four days after he had been in the Isle of Wight (Nov. 17). It gives his Majesty's view of what would be the right kind of negotiation, and conveys his definite offers. He cannot consent to the abolition of Episcopacy, but he will assent to the experiment of Presbytery for three years, if accompanied by a Toleration, but not for Papists, Atheists, and Blasphemers; he will surrender the Militia for his own life, on condition that it shall afterwards revert to the Crown; he will undertake for the Arrears of the Army; and on other matters he will be ready to do his utmost in a conclusive Personal Treaty in London.2 The two Houses retained their own ideas of the negotiation necessary; and, while giving orders for the despatch of a sufficient guard to the Isle of Wight, to be under Hammond's command, and also for the King's household comforts at Carisbrooke, the servants to be sent to him, &c., 1 Herbert, 55, 56. 2 Rushworth, VII. 871-2 and 880833; Parl. Hist. III. 786-7 and 799–802; and King Charles's Works (1651), 117— 125. VOL. III. PP they were re-adjusting their battery of negotiation for the changed circumstances of its object. At first the notion was to pursue the King to the Isle of Wight with the whole series of Propositions which the Houses had so carefully drawn out for presentation to him at Hampton Court. Here, however, they encountered the most obstinate opposition from the Scottish Commissioners. The mood of these gentlemen (Loudoun, Lanark, Lauderdale, Sir Charles Erskine, Hugh Kennedy, and Robert Barclay), sufficiently irritable before the King's flight from Hampton Court, was now that of the Thistle in full bloom. The King, they declared, had done right in fleeing from the hard usage of the English. Could his Majesty be expected to endure longer the insults, terrors, indignities, to which he had been of late subjected, ending actually in danger to his life from the ruffians of an ill-managed Army? Moreover, was not Charles also the sovereign of Scotland! Could the Scottish nation be expected to bear the contempt shown it in these "tossings" to and fro of their King, aggravated by the studied neglect of all the previous Remonstrances of the Scottish Commissioners and Estates on this very subject? No! let those Propositions which the English Parliament had been preparing be thrown aside, and let the King be invited to come to London, in safety and honour, for a Personal Treaty with Parliament, in which all might be "voluntary and free"!--Partly to please the angry Scottish Commissioners, partly to shake them off if they would not be pleased, the two Houses did make an alteration in their procedure. Instead of the entire prepared series of Propositions, or rather as antecedent to them, it was resolved to send to the King "Four Bills," embodying the Propositions "absolutely necessary for present security." Bill 1 was for the power of Parliament over the Militia for twenty years, or longer if necessary; Bill 2 was for confirmation of all acts of the Parliament in the late war; Bill 3 was for the cancelling of all Peerages conferred by the King since the beginning of the war, and the creation of new Peers only with consent of the two Houses; and Bill 4 was for giving the two Houses the right of adjournment at their own pleasure. -This change of procedure was first proposed in the Lords Nov. 25 (fifteen Peers present); there were divisions on it in the Commons Nov. 26 and 27, in the last of which it was carried by 115 to 106 (an unusually full House) to concur generally with the Peers in the matter; and then, after debates and conferences on details, the Bills, as above indicated, passed the Commons finally Dec. 11, and the Lords finally Dec. 14. It was also then arranged that the Earl of Denbigh and Lord Montague, for the Lords, and Mr. John Bulkeley, Mr. John Lisle, Mr. John Kemp, and Mr. Robert Goodwin, for the Commons, should be the Commissioners for carrying the Four Bills, and the Propositions too, so far as not superseded by the Bills, to the King in the Isle of Wight. They were to require his Majesty's consent to the Four Bills within ten days at the utmost; but the remaining Propositions were to be delivered to his Majesty only as containing matters on which the Houses would send another Commission to treat with him after he had assented to the Four Bills.1 If the two Houses had resorted at first to this changed method of procedure with any idea of pleasing the Scots, they had found reason to abandon that idea. The very day the Four Bills were finally passed (Dec. 14), the Scottish Commissioners, knowing well enough privately what they were, applied formally to the Committee of the Two Kingdoms for a copy of them. This being reported to the Commons, a discussion ensued, and Mr. Selden (particularly active about this time, and at any rate always eager for a brush with the Scots) was appointed chairman of a Committee to prepare an Answer. The Answer, adopted by the Commons Dec. 16, was taken up by Mr. Selden to the Lords the same day, and by then adopted also. It was to the effect that, as it was against the custom of the English kingdom to communicate Bills ready 1 Parl. Hist. II. 799-804 and 823826; Lords and Commons Journals of days named; also (for a special Letter of the Scottish Commissioners) Lords Journals, Nov. 18. For this Letter Charles thanked Lanark, saying, "Seri- |