popish recusants, and the restraint of popish priests and Jesuits, seeking to disturb the state. 2.  To restore to the crown the command of the army and navy at the expiration of ten years. 3.  And to reduce the number of delinquents among the English royalists to be excluded from pardon, to five individuals.  Had the king accepted these terms, he would most probably have been replaced on the throne; for his agents, who had the best means of forming a judgment, though

[Footnote 1:  Charles’s Works, 579.  Parl.  History, ii. 738.]

they differed on other points, agreed in this, that the officers acted uprightly and sincerely; but he had unfortunately persuaded himself—­and in that persuasion he was confirmed both by the advice of several faithful royalists and by the interested representations of the Scottish commissioners—­that the growing struggle between the Presbyterians and Independents would enable him to give the law to both parties; and hence, when “the settlement” was submitted to him for his final approbation, he returned an unqualified refusal.  The astonishment of his agents was not less than that of the officers.  Had he dissembled, or had he changed his mind?  In either case both had been deceived. They might suppress their feelings; but the agitators complained aloud, and a party of soldiers, attributing the disappointment to the intrigues of Lord Lauderdale, burst at night into the bedchamber of that nobleman, and ordered him to rise and depart without delay.  It was in vain, that he pleaded his duty as commissioner from the estates of Scotland, or that he solicited the favour of a short interview with the king:  he was compelled to leave his bed and hasten back to the capital.[1]

Before this, information of the proceedings in London had induced Fairfax to collect his forces and march towards the city.  On the way he was joined by the speakers of both houses, eight lords and fifty-eight commoners, who in a council held at Sion House solemnly bound themselves “to live and die with the army.”  Here it was understood that many royalists

[Footnote 1:  Compare the narratives of Berkeley, 364, Ashburnham, ii. 92, Ludlow, i. 174, and Huntingdon (Journals, x. 410) with the proposals of the army in Charles’s Works, 578.  The insult to Lauderdale is mentioned in the Lords’ Journals, ix. 367.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1647.  July 30.]

had joined the Presbyterians, and that a declaration had been circulated in the name of the king, condemning all attempts to make war on the parliament.  The officers, fearing the effect of this intelligence on the minds of the military, already exasperated by the refusal of their proposals, conjured Charles to write a conciliatory letter to the general, in which he should disavow any design of assisting the enemy, should thank the army for its attention to his comfort, and should commend the moderation of their plan of settlement in many points, though he could not consent to it