LIEUTENANT-GENERAL HENRY IRETON,

Lord Deputy of Ireland.

From the Painting by Robert Walker, in the collection of Mrs. B. M. Beadnell née Polhill), at Sundridge, Kent.

be taken for granted; but he does not seem to have had any opportunity, as a simple member of the House, for doing more. We can indeed only conjecture, though with tolerable certitude, that he was well pleased with the widening of the breach between the Presbyterians and the King, caused by the determination of Charles to make no stipulation which would lead to the abolition of episcopacy. Nor can he have been otherwise than well pleased when, on January 30, 1647, the Scottish army having received part of the sum due to them for their services in England, with promise of the remainder, marched for Scotland, having first delivered Charles over to commissioners appointed by the English Parliament, who conducted him to Holmby House, in Northamptonshire, which had been assigned to him by Parliament as a residence.

At last the time had arrived when a peaceful settlement of the distracted country appeared to have come in sight and, for the time at least, the Presbyterians seemed to have the strongest cards in their hands. They had a majority in Parliament, and it was for them, therefore, to formulate the principles on which the future institutions of the country were to be built. That the country was with them in wishing, on the one hand, for an arrangement in which the King could reappear as a constitutional factor in the Government, and, on the other hand, for a total or partial disbandment of the army, and a consequent relief from taxation, can hardly be denied. The great weakness, and, as it proved, the insuperable weakness of the Presbyterians lay in the incapacity of their leaders to understand the characters of the men with whom they had to deal. Right as they were in their opinion that the nation would readily accept a constitutional monarchy, it was impossible to persuade them, as was really the case, that Charles would never willingly submit to be bound by the limitations of constitutional monarchy, and still less to allow, longer than he could possibly help, the Church to be modelled after any kind of Presbyterian system. That he had the strongest possible conviction, on religious grounds, that episcopacy was of Divine ordinance, is beyond doubt, and on this point his tenacious, though irresolute mind, was strengthened by an assurance that in