PART THIRD
BETWEEN THE TWO CIVIL WARS
1646-1648
The conquering of the King had been a difficult operation; but to make a Treaty with him now when he was conquered, proved an impossible one. The Scots, to whom he had fled, entreated him, at last, ‘with tears’ and ‘on their knees,’ to take the Covenant, and sanction the Presbyterian worship, if he could not adopt it: on that condition they would fight to the last man for him; on no other condition durst or would a man of them fight for him. The English Presbyterians, as yet the dominant party, earnestly entreated to the same effect. In vain, both of them. The King had other schemes: the King, writing privately to Digby before quitting Oxford, when he had some mind to venture privately on London, as he ultimately did on the Scotch Camp, to raise Treaties and Caballings there, had said, ‘—endeavouring to get to London; being not without hope that I shall be able so to draw either the Presbyterians or the Independents to side with me for extirpating one another, that I shall be really King again.’[1] Such a man is not easy to make a Treaty with,—on the word of a King! In fact, his Majesty, though a belligerent party who had not now one soldier on foot, considered himself still a tower of strength; as indeed he was; all men having a to us inconceivable reverence for him, till bitter Necessity and he
- ↑ Oxford, 26th March 1646; Carte’s Life of Ormond, iii. Lond., 1735), p. 452
