A compro possible. the agent of the Pope. Compromise was hardly possible now. Even the House of Lords had been unable to find mise im- a common ground of pacification. Yet, perhaps in some measure because he was the weaker party, the intrigues of Charles had been far more dangerous than those of the leaders of the Commons. The tumults which they had encouraged were visible to the eye, and were calculated to arouse resistance from all peaceable and law-abiding men. A little patience, a little self-restraint, would have sufficed to banish them from the scene and enable Charles to triumph Dangers of the Com- over disorder. The King's appeals were made to mons. forces which were invisible, and the danger from which was beyond calculation. The Commons knew that they had not merely to deal with the armed garrison of Whitehall. These men were but the officers of that force of 10,000 volunteers which Charles had engaged to raise for the Irish war. It is hard in these days to keep before our eyes the mass of ignorance and untaught brutality on which the society of the 17th century rested. It is useless to plead that that society was in no danger because the Hydes and Falklands wished for nothing but constitutional government. The real danger lay in the military organisation of that lower class which cared nothing for the Hydes and Falklands, and which was to be drilled and disciplined by swashbucklers like Lunsford. And behind this terror lay a worse. Indistinct as was the information possessed by the Commons, there were grave reasons to suspect that the King was ready to make use of the Irish insurgents against the English Parliament, and, as we now know, the suspicion was not wholly without foundation. The name of the Queen was still more freely used than that of her husband. Men spoke openly of the troubles in Ireland as the Queen's rebellion.1 The belief was not likely to die out whilst courtiers were heard to say of the Irish that their 'grievances were great, their demands moderate,' and that they might 'stand the King in much stead." Men's minds were everywhere predisposed to panic. The guardian of the peace had become the aggressor, and hardly Panic in the anything seemed unlikely or impossible. That night City. an alarm was raised, probably an echo of Digby's rejected proposal. The Lord Mayor was asked to call out the trained bands. On his refusal the trained bands dispensed with his authority. No less than 40,000 men turned out completely armed to defend their homes, and 100,000 more appeared with halberts, swords, and clubs. As soon as it was ascertained that they had been misled by false news, the Lord Mayor had little difficulty in sending them home to their beds. That night of panic gave evidence that Charles had not merely to face the riotous apprentices who had irritated him at West. minster. The tradesman's love of peace and order, which had manifested itself in his favour on his return from Scotland, had passed over to his opponents, as the House of Lords had passed over to his opponents a few days before.1 attack the The next day's Committee was held at Grocers' Hall. It Evidence of was for some time occupied in hearing evidence on intention to the conduct of the soldiers who had followed Charles to the House. After this an intimation was given to the five members that they should take their seats on the roth, the day before the resumption of the sittings at Westminster. Commons. The King still resolute. He re Could the House again sit at Westminster in safety? Hitherto the King had shown no signs of flinching. On the 7th, a herald, standing in front of Whitehall, proclaimed all the six impeached persons as traitors. Charles ordered the Lord Mayor to do the same in the City. Gurney could no longer do as he would. plied that the proclamation was against law. An official who was sent on the hopeless task of effecting the arrest returned without his prey, having been 'much abused by the worse sort of people.' 2 On the following day the King gave a fierce reply to a City petition in favour of the Jan. 8. ' D'Ewes's Diary, Harl, MSS. clxii. fol. 309 b. 24 2 Giustinian's despatch, Jan. 14, Ven. Transcripts, R. O. Carteret to Pennington, Jan. 7, S. P. Dom. members, and an Order in Council bade the Lord Mayor and Aldermen to secure the person who, on the night of the panic, had dared to call out the trained bands without authority.' The Com mittee demands a guard fron the City. In the face of this danger the Committee cut the knot of the long-agitated question of the guard. A resolution was passed declaring it to be legal to require the sheriffs to bring the force of the county for the security of Parliament. It was further resolved that, as there was no law in existence on the subject of the militia, the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen, and the Common Council ought 'on this pressing and extraordinary occasion' to appoint the officers and to raise men.2 The next day was Sunday. It is easy to imagine the sermons that were preached, and the quiet, heartfelt joy at the great deliverance, not unmixed with proud satisfaction at the part played by the City in guarding the Commons of England from harm. Jan. 9. A Sunday in the City. Jan. 10. "3 On Monday morning Philip Skippon, the Captain of the Artillery Garden, was appointed Sergeant-Major-General, to take the command of the City trained bands. A Skippon pious, practical soldier, who had risen from the appointed to command. ranks, he was the very man to command a Puritan force. "Come, my boys," he once said when battle was approaching, "my brave boys, let us pray heartily and fight heartily. I will run the same fortunes and hazards with you.' He was now ordered to raise a guard for offence or defence. The request of the Commons' Committee, on which this authority was conferred, was at last backed by a similar request from a Committee of the Lords. All the constituted authorities were now against Charles. The popular current ran in the same direction. The seamen and mariners of the Thames offered to join in the defence of the Houses, and their offer was gladly accepted. Offer of the seamen and mariners. The King's answer, Rushworth, iv. 481. The Council to the Lord Mayor, Jan. 8, S. P. Dom. 2 Common Council Journal Book, xi. fol. 14. Whitelocke, 65. Common Council Journal Bock, xi. fol. 15. The five members in the Committee. Further arrangements for come. As soon as these arrangements had been made, the five members entered the Committee and received a hearty welSoon afterwards a deputation from the apprentices arrived to ask permission to join in the morrow's procession. The Committee, mindful of the alarm which might be caused by the re-appearance of these frolicsome lads upon the scene, gravely requested them to guard the City in the absence of their masters. Then came an announcement from Hampden, that some thousands of his constituents were on their way from Buckinghamshire with a petition. At first the Committee felt some anxiety at the approach of so numerous a body, but it was at last resolved to throw no opposition in their way. Finally an offer was accepted from the men of Southwark to guard their own side of the river.1 the return to Westminster. Charles By the time that these arrangements were completed Charles was no longer at Westminstcr. On the 9th he had become aware that it would be impossible to resist anxious for the return of the Commons. If there had been the Queen's safety. nothing else to influence him, the humiliation of remaining a defeated spectator of the triumph of his enemies would have been too great to bear. But he was more anxious for the Queen's safety than for his own dignity. He told Heenvliet, the Agent of the Prince of Orange, that he was sure that the Commons intended to take his wife from him. He at once despatched a messenger to Holland, no doubt to beg for material help from the Prince of Orange.2 At the same time he wrote to Pennington, commanding him to send a ship to Portsmouth to await orders, and to obey no future directions which did not emanate from himself.3 The next morning Charles prepared to set out. Holland and Essex, together with Lady Carlisle, begged some Jan. 10. who were in the King's confidence to plead for delay. No one would undertake the hopeless task. Heenvliet 'D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. fol. 313. 2 Heenvliet to the Prince of Orange, Jan. zme sér. iii. 500, iv. 1. II, 14 Groen van Prinsterer, Pennington to the King, Jan. 11, S. P. Dom. レ The King pre prepares to leave Whitehall. was finally applied to. "Who would dare to do it?" was all the answer he could give. There must have been an unaccustomed air of firmness in that irresolute face. At that moment Charles stood by his wife. He had done nothing to raise her to truer, broader views of the world in which they both lived, because he had no true and broad views of his own. He could not even carry out per · sistently her rash and petulant commands. But he could suffer with her tenderly and lovingly. Long afterwards, when she told how with a word of hers she had, as she believed, betrayed the secret of the design of surprising the five members, the memory of his self-restraint rose to her lips. "Never," she said, “did he treat me for a moment with less kindness than before it happened, though I had ruined him." 2 The King and Queen set out. In loving affection the Royal pair set out on their long exile. Charles was never to see Whitehall again, till he entered it as a prisoner to prepare for death. Henrietta Maria was after many years to return to the scene of her early happiness, a sad widow amidst a world which knew her not. Charles's troubles had commenced already. Essex and Holland refused to follow him, and told him that his proper place was with his Parliament. They expressed their readiness to surrender their offices. This was, however, refused, and Charles started without them. When Hampton Court was reached no preparations had been made for their reception. That night the King and Queen had to sleep in one room with their three eldest children.3 The next morning London was the scene of joyous com motion. At one o'clock the members of the House, with the five heroes of the day amongst them, took boat to return to Westminster. They were surrounded by a multitude of gaily dressed boats, firing volleys as they passed along. On the north side the City trained bands marched westward with resolute purpose. Jan. 11. The return of Par iament. Heenvliet to the Prince of Orange, Jan. 2me sér. iii. 500. 2 Madame de Motteville, Memoirs, ch. ix. II 21' In the midst of Groen van Prinsterer, Berners to Hobart, Jan. 17, Tanner MSS. Ixiii. fol. 242. |