Growing Importance of the Independents and the Army

After the Church party withdrew from parliament, the Presbyterians were in the majority. In the propositions of Oxford (February 1, 1643), Uxbridge (November 24, 1644), and Newcastle (July 4, 1646),' they had attempted to negotiate with the king. In a series of measures passed in parliament they had attempted to transform the church. They had discarded the prayer-book and introduced the famous Westminster Catechism, and had ordered the abolition of Episcopacy and the establishment of Presbyterianism. But just as the Church party had given-way to the Presbyterians, so now the latter were to fall before the more tolerant,' but more anti-monarchical, body of Independents, who, though a minority in parliament, were the dominant factor in the army.

With the close of the war and the failure of the Newcastle negotiations, the army came to the front and made itself master of the situation. To the consternation of the Presbyterian leaders, it refused to disband at the command of parliament, and at a meeting in a plain near Newmarket (June 4, 1647) issued the Solemn Engagement of the Army, saying that it would hold together until its demand of equal rights and common freedom for all should be granted. Thus the army was becoming not only democratic, but rebellious. At Triploe Heath, in August, it declared that parliament was too absolute and ought to come to all end, and at the same time it voted to impeach eleven members, who were considered in the main responsible for the Presbyterian policy. Parliament, thoroughly frightened, yielded, and the eleven members with- drew from the House. At this juncture London rose in defence of the Presbyterian majority, and Cromwell, who had thrown in his lot with the army, rather from hostility to the methods of the Presbyterians than from sympathy with the democratic principles of the soldiers, occupied the city. The result was most important. Having excluded the royalists and compelled the Presbyterian leaders to withdraw, the old Long Parliament was fast losing its character as a representative body. Though it still called itself parliament, it represented the people of England only in name. The real power lay in the hands of Cromwell and the soldiers.

Negotiations of the Army with the King

The leaders of the army now tried, in their turn, to negotiate with the king. In August, 1647, they drew up the Heads of Proposals,' in which they demanded : (1) the dissolution of the present parliament; (2) the summoning of regular parliaments every two years; (3) a fairer representation of the people in parliament; and (4) religious liberty. The leaders of the army, who had drafted the .Heads of Proposals, were willing to leave more power in the hands of the king than were the rank and file. When, therefore, in September, the king refused to receive the Heads of Proposals, the common soldiers broke out against the leaders and demanded the right of stating their conditions. Cromwell, in order to remain their leader, yielded and allowed them to present their case in what is known as the Agreement of the People (October 19, 1647). In this document they insisted that entire authority be placed in the hands of the people and that a government of a completely democratic character be established.

Second Civil War: Pride's Purge

Just at this time further negotiations were prevented by the escape of the king from Hampton Court and his flight to Carisbrooke Castle (November 11-14, 1647). Charles, in his desire to promote discord among the Puritans, was at this time negotiating with the Scots, promising them religious concessions in return for military aid. His scheme failed; for not only was he at Carisbrooke as much a prisoner as ever, but his flight and the threatened danger of the Scottish invasion for the moment united parliament and the army against him. Both bodies refused to have any dealings with the king and prepared for war.

Party lines were no longer those of the earlier period; many who had fought against the king now went over to his side, fearing that the army wished to make changes in government much more radical than those of 1640-1641. Popular risings in the name of the king took place in Kent, Surrey, and Essex, where formerly parliament had been strong ; and moderates joined with royalists, not so much to defend monarchy as to oppose the growing power of the army. London, aroused by the arrogance of the military leaders, was seething with discontent, and the fleet had already declared for the king. The royalists rose in Wales, and in July, 1648, the Scots sent an army across the frontier to aid them.

CARISBROOKE CASTLE: GATEWAY, TOWER GATEWAY, AND RUINED KEEPBEHIND.

But the war was of short duration. Fairfax, in a battle at Maidstone, July, 1648, put down the Kentish revolt, and by August, Cromwell, who had undertaken the campaign in Wales, had not only starved the royalists in Pembroke Castle into surrender, but was hastening to the aid of the forces of the north. There he won the battle of Preston, against Hamilton and his Scottish army. Ten days later, August 25, 1648, Fairfax ended the war by the seizure of Colchester in Essex.

The importance of the second civil war in deciding the fate of the king can hardly be overestimated. It embittered the army against the king and made it fierce, implacable, and vindictive. It made the leaders resolve that “ if ever the Lord brought them back again in peace, to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for the blood he had shed and the mischief he had done to his utmost against the Lord's cause and people in these poor nations." Fearing lest parliament, in which the majority was still Presbyterian, was preparing to restore the king, they sent a remonstrance to that body, demanding that all negotiations should be broken off and the king punished. When parliament, paying no attention to the remonstrance, continued its negotiations, the army determined to take matters into its own bands. On December 6, 1648, it sent Colonel Pride to expel the Presbyterian majority from the House of Commons. Pride carried out his orders to the letter, and "purged" the House of the one hundred and forty-three Presbyterian members, leaving the Independents in control. Thus the Long Parliament ceased to be representative in any sense of the word, and under the name of the Rump Parliament, was only a partisan revolutionary committee, prepared to wreak its vengeance on the king.

The Execution of Charles I

Cromwell and the other leaders of the army had finally become convinced of the necessity of adopting extreme measures. On January 6, 1649, the so-called parliament passed an act creating a high court of justice of one hundred and thirty-five persons, to try the king for attempting "to subvert the ancient and fundamental laws and liberties of the nation, introducing in their place a tyrannical and arbitrary government."' Nearly half of the men named refused to serve, some of them denying the right of such a court to try any one. But the remainder, undeterred, took their places in Westminster Hall, on January 21, 1649, and proceeded with the trial. The king, denying the jurisdiction of the court, refused to plead . After five days the commissioners voted that the king should die, and on the 27th the sentence was read. On January 30 Charles was conducted to the scaffold erected outside of the banqueting hall of the palace of Whitehall, and there beheaded in the presence of the soldiers and of the citizens of London. That he deserved punishment no one can deny; but that he deserved such extreme punishment from a tribunal neither legal nor competent, certainly no one can affirm. The manner of his trial and his own composure and dignity at the scaffold raised him in the eyes of the people to the place of a martyr and overshadowed his real guilt.