of the royal attendants to inform the king that a military force was on its way to make him prisoner.  Charles immediately consulted the duke of Richmond, the earl of Lindsey, and Colonel Coke, who joined in conjuring him to save his life by an immediate escape.  The night was dark and stormy; they were acquainted with the watchword; and Coke offered him horses and a boat.  But the king objected, that he was bound in honour to remain twenty days after the treaty, nor would he admit of the distinction which they suggested, that his parole was given not to the army, but to the parliament.  It was in vain that they argued and entreated:  Charles, with his characteristic obstinacy,[a] retired to rest about midnight; and in a short time Lieutenant-Colonel Cobbett arrived with a troop of horse and a company of foot.  Boreman refused to admit him into Carisbrook.  But Rolfe offered him aid at Newport; at five the king was awakened by a message that he must prepare to depart; and about noon he was safely lodged in Hurst Castle, situate on a solitary rock, and connected by a narrow causeway, two miles in length, with the opposite coast of Hampshire.[1]

The same day the council of officers published a menacing declaration against the House of Commons.  It charged the majority with apostasy from their former principles, and appealed from their authority to “the extraordinary judgment of God and of all good people;” called on the faithful members to protest against the past conduct of their colleagues, and to place themselves under the protection of the army; and asserted that since God had given to the officers the power, he had also made it their duty, to

[Footnote 1:  Rushworth, vii. 1344-1348, 1351.  Herbert, 113, 124.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1648.  Nov. 30.]

provide for the settlement of the kingdom and the punishment of the guilty.[a] In the pursuit of these objects, Fairfax marched several regiments to London, and quartered them at Whitehall, York House, the Mews, and in the skirts of the city.[1]

The reader will recollect the pusillanimous conduct of the Presbyterian members on the approach of the army in the year 1646.[b] On the present occasion they resolved to redeem their character.  They betrayed no symptom of fear, no disposition to retire, or to submit.  Amidst the din of arms and the menaces of the soldiers, they daily attended their duty in parliament, declared that the seizure of the royal person had been, made without their knowledge or consent, and proceeded to consider the tendency of the concessions made by Charles in the treaty of Newport.  This produced the longest and most animated debate hitherto known in the history of parliament.  Vane drew a most unfavourable portrait of the king, and represented all his promises and professions as hollow and insincere; Fiennes became for the first time the royal apologist, and refuted the charges brought by his fellow commissioner; and Prynne, the celebrated adversary of Laud, seemed to forget his antipathy to the court, that he might lash the presumption and perfidy of the army.  The debate continued by successive adjournments three days and a whole night; and on the last division in the morning a resolution was carried by a majority of thirty-six, that the offers of the sovereign furnished a sufficient ground for the future settlement of the kingdom.[2][c]