severity.  Glamorgan had been guilty of unpardonable presumption.  Without the permission of the king, or the privity of the lord lieutenant, he had concluded a treaty with the rebels, and pledged the king’s name to the observance of conditions pregnant with the most disastrous consequences.  It was an usurpation of the royal authority; an offence little short of high treason.  The accused, faithful to his trust, made but a feeble defence, and was committed to close custody.  In the despatches from the council to Charles, Digby showed that he looked on the concealment which had been practised towards him as a personal affront, and expressed his sentiments with a warmth and freedom not the most grateful to the royal feelings.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Rushworth, vi. 239, 240.  Carte’s Ormond, iii. 436-440.  “You do not believe,” writes Hyde to secretary Nicholas, “that my lord Digby knew of my lord Glamorgan’s commission and negotiation in Ireland.  I am confident he did not; for he shewed me the copies of letters which he had written to the king upon it, which ought not in good manners to have been written; and I believe will not be forgiven to him, by those for whose service they were written.”—­Clarendon Papers, ii. 346.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1645.  Oct. 17.]

The unfortunate monarch was still at Oxford devising new plans and indulging new hopes.  The dissensions among his adversaries had assumed a character of violence and importance which they had never before borne.  The Scots, irritated by the systematic opposition of the Independents, and affected delays of the parliament, and founding the justice of their claim on the solemn league and covenant confirmed by the oaths of the two nations, insisted on the legal establishment of Presbyterianism, and the exclusive prohibition of every other form of worship.  They still ruled in the synod of divines; they were seconded by the great body of ministers in the capital, and by a numerous party among the citizens; and they confidently called for the aid of the majority in the two houses, as of their brethren of the same religions persuasion.  But their opponents, men of powerful intellect and invincible spirit, were supported by the swords and the merits of a conquering army.  Cromwell, from the field of Naseby, had written to express his hope, that the men who had achieved so glorious a victory might be allowed to serve God according to the dictates of their consciences.  Fairfax, in his despatches, continually pleaded in favour of toleration.  Seldon and Whitelock warned their colleagues to beware how they erected among them the tyranny of a Presbyterian kirk; and many in the two houses began to maintain that Christ had established no particular form of church government, but had left it to be settled under convenient limitations by the authority of the state.[1] Nor were their

[Footnote 1:  Baillie, ii. 111, 161, 169, 183.  Rushw. vi. 46, 85.  Whitelock, 69, 172.  Journals, vii. 434, 476, 620.]