conditions proposed by their former commissioners; but the latter, in language unceremonious and insulting, laid before him the sins of his youth; his refusal to allow the Son of God to reign over him in the pure ordinances of church government and worship; his cleaving to counsellors who never had the glory of God or the good of his people before their eyes; his admission to his person of that “fugacious man and excommunicate rebel, James Graham” and, above all, “his giving the royal power and strength to the beast,” by concluding a peace “with the Irish papists, the murderers of so many Protestants.”  They bade him remember the iniquities of his father’s house, and be assured that, unless he laid aside the “service-book, so stuffed with Romish corruptions, for the reformation of doctrine and worship agreed upon by the divines at Westminster,” and approved of the covenant in his three kingdoms, without which the people could have no security for their religion or liberty, he would find that the Lord’s anger was not turned away, but that his hand was still stretched against the royal person and his family.[1]

This coarse and intemperate lecture was not calculated to make a convert of a young and spirited prince.  Instead of giving an answer, he waited to ascertain the opinion of Ormond; and at last, though inclination prompted him to throw himself into the arms of his Irish adherents, he reluctantly submitted to the authority of that officer, who declared, that the only way to preserve Ireland was by provoking a war between England and Scotland[2].  Charles now condescended[a]

[Footnote 1:  Clar.  State Papers, iii.  App. 89-92.  Carte’s Letters, i. 323.  Whitelock, 439.  The address of the kirk was composed by Mr. Wood, and disapproved by the more moderate.—­Baillie, ii. 339, 345.]

[Footnote 2:  Carte’s Letters, i. 333, 340.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1650.  Jan. 11.]

to give to the convention the title of estates of parliament, appointed Breda, a small town, the private patrimony of the prince of Orange, for the place of treaty; and met[a] there the new commissioners, the earls of Cassilis and Lothian, with two barons, two burgesses, and three ministers.  Their present scarcely differed from their former demands; nor were they less unpalatable to the king.  To consent to them appeared to him an apostasy from the principles for which his father fought and died; an abandonment of the Scottish friends of his family to the mercy of his and their enemies.  On the other hand, the prince of Orange importuned him to acquiesce; many of his counsellors suggested that, if he were once on the throne, he might soften or subdue the obstinacy of the Scottish parliament; and his mother, by her letters, exhorted him not to sacrifice to his feelings this his last resource, the only remaining expedient for the recovery of his three kingdoms.  But the king had still another resource; he sought delays; his eyes were fixed on the efforts of his friends in the north of Scotland; and he continued to indulge a hope of being replaced without conditions on the ancient throne of his ancestors.[1]