[Footnote 2:  This gentleman might be Fairfax or Cromwell; but from a letter of Baillie (ii. 199, App. 3), I should think that he was an “Independent minister,” probably Peters.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1646.  April.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1646.  April 18.] [Sidenote c:  A.D. 1646.  April 20.] [Sidenote d:  A.D. 1646.  March 2.]

repeating his offers, describing his distress, and stating that, unless he received a favourable answer within four days, he must have recourse to some other expedient.[1] The negotiation, however, continued for weeks; it was even discovered by the opposite party, who considered it as an artful scheme on the part of[a] the Independents to detain the king in Oxford, till Fairfax and Cromwell should bring up the army from Cornwall; to amuse the royal bird, till the fowlers had enclosed him in their toils.[2]

Oxford during the war had been rendered one of the strongest fortresses in the kingdom.  On three sides the waters of the Isis and the Charwell, spreading over the adjoining country, kept the enemy at a considerable distance, and on the north the city was covered with a succession of works, erected by the most skilful engineers.  With a garrison of five thousand men, and a plentiful supply of stores and provisions, Charles might have protracted his fate for several months; yet the result of a siege must have been his captivity.  He possessed no army; he had no prospect of assistance from without; and within, famine would in the end compel him to surrender.  But where was he to seek an asylum?

[Footnote 1:  See two letters, one of March 2, from Ashburnham, beginning, “Sir, you cannot suppose the work is done,” and another without date from Charles, beginning, “Sir, I shall only add this word to what was said in my last.”  They were first published from the papers of secretary Nicholas, by Birch, in 1764, in the preface to a collection of “Letters between Colonel Hammond and the committee at Derby House, &c.,” and afterwards in the Clarendon Papers, ii. 226, 227.]

[Footnote 2:  See Baillie, App. 3, App. 23, ii. 199, 203.  “Their daily treaties with Ashburnham to keep the king still, till they deliver him to Sir Thomas Fairfax, and to be disposed upon as Cromwell and his friend think it fittest for their affairs.”—­Ibid.  A different account is given in the continuation of Macintosh, vi. 21.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1646.  April 23.]

Indignant at what he deemed a breach of faith in the Scots, he spurned the idea of throwing himself on[a] their mercy; and the march of Fairfax with the advanced guard of his army towards Andover admonished him that it was time to quit the city of Oxford.  First he inquired by two officers the opinion of Ireton, who[b] was quartered at Waterstock, whether, if he were to disband his forces, and to repair to the general, the parliament would suffer him to retain the title and authority of king.  Then, receiving no answer[c]