66 tance on this point to a belief that the support of the Church was even more essential to monarchical power than the command of the militia; but this view seems to do injustice both to his sense and his sincerity. He had too much ability to believe the pen of the bishop could guard his throne as well as the sword of the army. The 'command of the militia' had been the stake of the war, and there was now not a militia, but an army, to command. Secondly, a careful study of his letters induces the belief that his religious convictions were deeper and stronger than his political views. His political views may have been taught to him by his father and his ministers; his religious views were taught by his father, his ministers, and his heart. Yet it was on this very point that his friends, both at home and abroad, most urgently pressed him to yield. They thought that if this concession by itself did not win over the Parliament, it would certainly win over the Scots. To keep the militia, to yield the Church, was the command, rather than the advice, of his wife. "By granting the militia,” she wrote, you cut your own throat, for then there is nothing you can refuse, no not my life even, if they ask it; but I will take care not to fall into their hands."* Her letters were always written in the same heartless tone. She was far less tender of her husband's happiness, conscience, or life, than she was of his power. If he regained his old authority, she was ready to return and share it with him; if he lost it, she would sooner he stayed a prisoner in England than trouble her with the presence of a crownless fugitive. Charles, however, wrote doleful letters, pointing out that if he did not quit the kingdom now, he might lose his last chance of escape. These she only answered by forbidding him to think of escape, until the Scots should have declared in plain language they would not protect him. Poor Charles! there were two acts for which he felt real regret, and to both of which he had been urged by his queen; the first was, in his own words, "that base, unworthy concession about Strafford ;" the second, "that great wrong and injustice to the Church, of taking away bishops' votes in Parliament." Though he sacrificed his personal safety to her wishes, he refused to load his conscience a third time for her * "Vous vous êtes coupé la gorge; car vous ne leur pouvez rien refuser, pas même ma vie, s'ils vous la demandent. Mais je ne me mettrai pas entre leurs mains." 1646.] HIS SCRUPLES. 197 satisfaction. He did, indeed, endeavour to meet her wishes by a compromise. He proposed to her that he should let the Presbyterian Church remain as the established Church of England for three years, on condition that the question should then be referred to Parliament for an ultimate decision after previous discussion by an Assembly of Divines. This compromise was approved by Juxon, to whom Charles submitted it as at once the keeper of his conscience and the maintainer of the Church. But the queen treated the compromise with scorn; she taunted him with the folly of having a conscience which would give up a point for three years, when nothing was to be got by it, and yet scrupled to give up the point for life to save his kingdom. "Permettez moi de vous dire, que je crois, si je me pouvais dispenser d'une chose que je croyais contre ma conscience pour trois ans et pour rien, j'irais plus loin pour sauver mon royaume. Mais pour toutes autres choses n'accordez plus rien." Thus brow-beaten out of all concession on the militia question, and heartlessly ridiculed out of his attempt to meet his wife's wishes on the Church question, Charles in despair returned to his original intention, and sent messages to Parliament, making no concessions, but only proposing to come to London and treat in person (Aug., Dec.). Though the Presbyterians were disappointed with his answer, which was tantamount to a refusal, they still believed that, once in their hands, they could wring the concessions from him, and then disband the Independent army. After some haggling, the Scots secured a written promise for £400,000, as the charge to which they had been put by the war. A treaty was signed accordingly (Dec.). Though no mention was made of the king, it was fully understood that the Scots were to deliver him up, when their army evacuated Newcastle. As Charles had come to his enemies' camp, uninvited, after refusing the covenant, Scots surthe only terms on which they offered to protect him, they render king. were not bound to let him go, still less to fight for him; though they would have done even that, if he would now have agreed to their offer. It was understood that if he was given up, the English Presbyterians would restore him to the throne, on their own terms, and disband the 'evil army'* of the Independents. It would have been perfectly justifiable in the Scots to give him up * Baillie. on these terms. Not content with this they made a canny bargain. No doubt, had they given him up without a money treaty, they would never have been paid their arrears, and this was much to poor men. As it was, they got their money, but more than their money's worth of abuse. They earned the abuse by making the terms of surrender mercenary, and not political. The distinction may seem fine, and the judgment hard. But there are cases where a high sense of honour can alone save men from deep dishonour. They were now called 'the traitor Scots,' 'the Jews who sold their king,' and as they marched out of Newcastle, which was always Royalist in feeling, the very women were all but stoning them (30th Jan.). Meantime, the Presbyterian commissioners escorted the king from Newcastle to the residence assigned him at Holmby House in Northamptonshire. On the road crowds flocked to see him. The country people everywhere hoped that their troubles were over, that an agreement would be made on which the army would be disbanded, and the king return to London with honour and safety.* Near Nottingham Charles met Sir Thomas Fairfax, who dismounted to kiss his hand, and afterwards rode through the town by his side. At Holmby he received a hearty welcome from a large concourse of gentlemen, ladies, and yeomen (Feb. 13th). Well content with his reception, his spirits rose, and he made no doubt he should yet get either Presbyterians or Independents to unite with him, "to extirpate the other and make him really a king again !" * Ludlow, i. 162. CHAPTER IX. PRESBYTERIANS, INDEPENDENTS, ERASTIANS, AND THEIR THEORIES. O wad some pow'r the giftie gie us What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, An' e'en devotion.-BURNS. FOR the last three years the Assembly of Divines had been sitting almost daily in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey. The assembly consisted of a hundred and twenty ministers, all Presbyterians but ten or twelve Inde- Presbytependents; twenty members of the Commons and ten rians." peers; besides four ministers and three laymen from Scotland. They were preparing a new Prayer-book, a form of Church Government, a Confession of Faith, and a Catechism; but the real questions at issue were the establishment of the Presbyterian Church and the toleration of sectarians. The Presbyterians, as we know, desired to establish their own form of Church government by assemblies and synods, without any toleration for nonconformists, whether Catholics, Episcopalians, or sectarians. But though they formed a large majority in the assembly, there was a well-organized opposition of Independents and Erastians, whose union made it no easy matter for the Presbyterians to carry every vote their own way. The Independents agreed with the Presbyterians in freeing the Church from the control of the State, but the essential requirements of their theory of Church government were—1st, the independence of each separate congregation, including the Church election of its own ministers; 2nd, that penalties for Indepenspiritual offences should be spiritual and not temporal; dents. inflicted, not by the civil magistrate, nor by assemblies, but by the congregation. Their theory on this second point was expressed Government by Milton in a pamphlet in which he wrote, "It is not to be expected all in a church to be gold and silver and precious stones; it is not possible for man to sever the wheat from the tares, the good fish from the other fry; that must be the angels' ministry, at the end of mortal things. Yet, if all cannot be of one mind, as who looks they should be? this, doubtless, is more wholesome, more prudent, and more Christian, that many be tolerated rather than all compelled." This noble theory of toleration naturally, but illogically, they confined to all sects who taught the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. The name of the Erastian party was derived from a German of the sixteenth century, called Erastus. These were at the opposite pole to their allies. The Independents made each congregation independent of both Church and State; the Presbyterians made the congregation dependent on an independent Church; while the Erastians made the Church itself dependent on the State. Their wish being to reduce the power of the Church, they were as strongly opposed as the Independents to the strong Church government of the Presbyterians, and were quite willing to agree with them in making the congregation independent of any Erastians. such central authority as the Scotch assembly. They also agreed with the Independents in their objection to civil penalties for spiritual offences. In fact they went further, and objected to spiritual offences being punished by the spiritual weapon of excommunication. Their party mainly consisted of lay members from the Parliament, who had the intuitive dislike of lawyers to courts administered by ecclesiastics. Episcopacy many of them would have been willing to restore, if shorn of the moral and social jurisdiction it enforced under civil penalties. The English Church, as administered at the present day, would have nearly come up to their ideal. The Presbyterian Church could be seen in full work in Scotland. There toleration was unknown. Those who conformed held their goods and chattels at the mercy of ministers and elders sitting in kirk session; while those who did not conform were imprisoned till they did; neighbours and servants acted as informers, and the edifice was crowned by a great Church Assembly, in power more than a match for the Scotch Parliament. Bad as it is to have Church and State acting in antagonism to one another, in Scotland the establishment of the Presbyterian |