This action put an end to the projected treaty.  The parliament reproached the king that, while he professed the strongest repugnance to shed the blood of Englishmen, he had surprised and murdered their adherents at Brentford, unsuspicious as they were, and relying on the security of a pretended negotiation.  Charles indignantly retorted the charge on his accusers.  They were the real deceivers, who sought to keep him inactive in his position, till they had surrounded him with the multitude of their adherents.  In effect his situation daily became more critical.  His opponents had summoned forces from every quarter to London, and Essex found himself at the head of twenty-four thousand men.  The two armies faced[a] each other a whole day on Turnham Green; but neither ventured to charge, and the king, understanding that the corps which, defended the bridge at Kingston had been withdrawn, retreated first to Beading, and then to Oxford.  Probably he found himself too weak to cope with the superior number of his adversaries; publicly he alleged his unwillingness to oppose by a battle any further obstacle to a renewal of the treaty.[2]

The whole kingdom at this period exhibited a most melancholy spectacle.  No man was suffered to remain neuter.  Each county, town, and hamlet was divided into factions, seeking the ruin. of each other.  All stood upon their guard, while the most active of either

[Footnote 1:  Each party published contradictory accounts.  I have adhered to the documents entered in the Journals, which in my opinion show that, if there was any breach of faith in these transactions, it was on the part of the parliament, and act of the king.]

[Footnote 2:  May, 179.  Whitelock, 65, 66.  Clarendon, ii. 76.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1642.  Nov. 14.]

party eagerly sought the opportunity of despoiling the lands and surprising the persons of their adversaries.  The two great armies, in defiance of the prohibitions of their leaders, plundered wherever they came, and their example was faithfully copied by the smaller bodies of armed men in other districts.  The intercourse between distant parts of the country was interrupted; the operations of commerce were suspended; and every person possessed of property was compelled to contribute after a certain rate to the support of that cause which obtained the superiority in his neighbourhood.  In Oxford and its vicinity, in the four northern counties, in Wales, Shropshire, and Worcestershire, the royalists triumphed without opposition; in the metropolis, and the adjoining counties, on the southern and eastern coast, the superiority of the parliament was equally decisive.  But in many parts the adherents of both were intermixed in such different proportions, and their power and exertions were so variously affected by the occurrences of each succeeding day, that it became difficult to decide which of the two parties held the preponderance.  But there were four counties,