These offers were rejected by Parliament, and the army of Fairfax advanced toward Oxford.  In the meanwhile, Montreuil, a special ambassador from France, bad been negotiating with the Scottish commissioners in London to induce the Scots to take up the cause of the king.  He then proceeded to Edinburgh, and afterward to the Scotch army.  At first the Scotch were willing to receive him; but they perceived the danger which would be involved in a quarrel with the English Parliament.  Already there were many causes of dispute.  The army had not received the pay promised them when they marched south, and being without money had been obliged to live upon the country, creating great disorders and confusion, and rendering themselves bitterly hated by the people.  Thus their answers continued to be ambiguous, making no absolute promise, but yet giving a sort of encouragement to the king to place himself in their hands.

Toward the end of April Fairfax was drawing so close around Oxford that the king felt that hesitation was no longer possible, and accompanied only by his chaplain, Dr. Michael Hudson, and by a groom of his bedchamber, named Jack Ashburnham, he left Oxford at night, and after many adventures arrived at the Scotch army, before Newark, where upon his arrival “many lords came instantly to wait on his majesty, with professions of joy to find that he had so far honored their army as to think it worthy his presence after so long an opposition.”  Lord Leven, however, who commanded the Scotch army, while receiving the king with professions of courtesy and honor, yet gave him to understand that he must in some way consider himself as a prisoner.  The king, at the request of the Scotch, signed an order to his governor of Newark, who had been for months bravely holding out, to surrender the place, and this having been done, the Scottish army with the king marched to Newcastle.

After the king’s surrender to the Scotch the civil war virtually ceased, although many places still held out.  Oxford, closely invested, maintained itself until the 22d of June, when it capitulated to Fairfax, upon the terms that the garrison “should march out of the city of Oxford with their horses and complete arms that properly belong under them proportionable to their present or past commands, flying colors, trumpets sounding, drums beating, matches alight at both ends, bullets in their mouths, and every soldier to have twelve charges of powder, match and bullet proportionable.”  Those who desired to go to their houses or friends were to lay down their arms within fifteen miles of Oxford, and then to have passes, with the right of free quarter, and those who wished to go across the sea to serve any foreign power were to be allowed to do so.  This surrender was honorable to both parties, and upon the city being given up, the garrison marched out, and then scattered to their various houses and counties, without let or molestation from the troops of the Commons.