not justice on the culprit, but security to themselves.  They seized the opportunity of freeing the government from the presence of a man whom they had so long feared; and, as he refused to kneel at the bar while judgment was pronounced, they embodied the vote in an act of parliament.  To save his life, Lilburne submitted; but his residence on the continent was short:  the reader will soon meet with him again in England.[1]

The Levellers had boldly avowed their object; the royalists worked in the dark and by stealth; yet the council by its vigilance and promptitude proved a match for the open hostility of the one and the secret machinations of the other.  A doubt may, indeed, be raised of the policy of the “engagement,” a promise of fidelity to the commonwealth without king or house of lords.  As long as it was confined to those who held office under the government, it remained a mere question of choice; but when it was exacted from all Englishmen above seventeen years of age, under the penalty of incapacity to maintain an action in any court of law, it became to numbers a matter of necessity, and served rather to irritate than to produce security.[2] A more efficient measure was the permanent establishment of a high court of justice to inquire into offences against the state, to which was added the organization of a system of espionage by Captain Bishop, under the direction of Scot, a member of the council.  The friends of monarchy, encouraged by the clamour of the Levellers and the professions of the Scots, had begun to hold meetings,

[Footnote 1:  Journals, 1651, Dec. 23; 1652, Jan. 15, 20, 30.  Whitelock, 520.  State Trials, v. 407-415.]

[Footnote 2:  Leicester’s Journal, 97-101.]

sometimes under the pretence of religious worship, sometimes under that of country amusements:  in a short time they divided the kingdom into districts called associations, in each of which it was supposed that a certain number of armed men might be raised; and blank commissions with the royal signature were obtained, to be used in appointing colonels, captains, and lieutenants, for the command of these forces.  Then followed an active correspondence both with Charles soon after his arrival in Scotland, and with the earl of Newcastle, the Lord Hopton, and a council of exiles; first at Utrecht, and afterwards at the Hague.  By the plan ultimately adopted, it was proposed that Charles himself or Massey, leaving a sufficient force to occupy the English army in Scotland, should, with a strong corps of Cavalry, cross[a] the borders between the kingdoms; that at the same time the royalists in the several associations should rise in arms, and that the exiles in Holland, with five thousand English and German adventurers, should land in Kent, surprise Dover, and hasten to join their Presbyterian associates, in the capital.[1] But, to arrange and insure the co-operation of all the parties concerned required the employment of numerous agents, of whom, if several were actuated by principle, many were of doubtful faith and desperate fortunes.  Some of these betrayed their trust; some undertook to serve both parties, and deceived each; and it is a curious fact that, while the letters of the agents for the royalists often passed through the hands of Bishop himself, his secret papers belonging to the council of state were copied and forwarded to the king.[2] This consequence however followed,