pointment were best calculated to allay any such hensions.'1

appre

The Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Southampton, the Lord Capell, the Lord Hopton, Sir Edward Hyde, and the Lord Culpepper were named as a council to the Prince of Wales, and appointed to meet frequently at the Prince's lodgings to consider "with his Highness "what preparations should be made for his journey, and “in what manner his family should be established."

From this time Lord Capell was called upon to play an important part both in the council and the field. A further delay in the King's intention of parting with the Prince was now, however, occasioned by the hopeful prospect of a peace. Important dissensions had arisen among the leaders at Westminster. The more violent party had become dissatisfied with Lord Essex, Cromwell accused the Earl of Manchester of having betrayed the Parliament out of cowardice at the battle of Newbury, and the Scotch Commissioners were displeased with Cromwell and Vane. With the few exceptions of 'Clarendon's Hist. of the Rebellion,' vol. v. p. 11.

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2 Ibid.

3 The Scotch Commissioners demanded an interview with Lord Essex, Mr. Maynard, and Mr. Whitelock, on which occasion they spoke of Cromwell" as no friend of ours; and since the advance of our army into "England he hath used underhand and cunning means to take off from our honour and merit in this kingdom-an evil requital of all our hazards "and services; but so it is. . . . He is not only no friend to us and to "the government of our Church, but he is also no well-wisher to his “Excellency. . . . Now the matter is, wherein we desire your opinion, "what you take the meaning of the word 'incendiary' to be, and whether "Lieutenant-General Cromwell be not sike an incendiary as is meant "thereby, and whilke way wud be best to tak to proceed against him "if he be proved to be sike an incendiary, and that will clepe his wings "from soaring to the prejudice of our cause."-Whitelock's Memoriuls, p. 111.

those who were influenced by motives of fear, or interested by hopes of personal aggrandisement, in maintaining the war, peace was now earnestly wished for on both sides, and after much preliminary negotiation, beginning in December, 1644, it was finally determined that a treaty should be set on foot, and that Uxbridge should be the place of meeting. Accordingly, on the 30th of January, sixteen Commissioners for the two Houses of Parliament, four for the Parliament of Scotland, and sixteen for the King, assembled at Uxbridge for that purpose. Lord Capell was one of the Commissioners for the King who were engaged in that arduous but unavailing task. The three subjects discussed, on which the treaty was to be framed, were the Church,' the state of Ireland, and the militia. The King's Commissioners offered certain limitations respecting episcopal government that might have reasonably satisfied the Scots and the English Presbyterians, but they were immoveable. The Covenant, the whole Covenant, and nothing but the Covenant and the spirit of the Covenant, would satisfy their demands; nor did they show any greater disposition.

The King's doctors, Steward and Sheldon, argued at Uxbridge that Episcopacy was jure divino, Henderson and others that Presbytery was so.-Whitelock, p. 132.

2 "The King's Commissioners offered, what in an earlier stage of their "discussions would have satisfied almost every man, that limited scheme "of Episcopal hierarchy that rendered the Bishop among his Presbyters "much like the King in Parliament, not free to exercise his jurisdiction, "nor to confer orders without their consent, and offered to leave all cere"monies to the minister's discretion. Such a compromise would probably "have pleased the English nation, averse to nothing in their Established "Church except its abuses; but the Parliamentary negotiators would not "so much as enter into discussion upon it."-Hallam's Constitutional Hist., vol. ii. p. 237.

to make concession on the subject of the militia; and though it must always remain a subject of doubtful and interesting speculation what Charles's position might have been had he yielded sufficiently to the demands of Parliament for the treaty to have been made, yet no doubt can remain on the mind of any candid reader of the details of that negotiation that the conduct of the Parliamentary and Scotch Commissioners went far to justify the animadversions contained in the last paper delivered to them by the King's Commissioners, in which they observed "that, after a war of so many years, entered into, as was pretended, for the defence "and vindication of the laws of the land and liberty of "the subject, in a treaty of twenty days they had not "demanded any one thing that by the law of the land

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they had the least title to demand, but insisted only "on such particulars as were against law and the estab"lished government of the kingdom; and that much.

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more had been offered to them for the obtaining of peace than they could with justice or reason require."1

'Clarendon's History of the Rebellion,' vol. v. p. 80.

According to the great principle that the English constitution in all "its component parts was to be maintained by both sides in this contest, "the question for Parliament was not what their military advantages or resources for war entitled them to ask, but what was required for the "due balance of power under a limited monarchy. They could rightly "demand no further concession from the King than was indispensable for "their own and the people's security; and I leave any one who is tolerably acquainted with the state of England at the beginning of 1645 to "decide whether their privileges and the public liberties incurred a "greater risk by such an equal partition of power over the sword as the King proposed, than his prerogative and personal freedom would have "encountered by abandoning it altogether to their discretion."-Hallam's Constitutional Hist., vol. ii. p. 238-9.

The Commissioners parted on the 22nd of February. The efforts of body and mind made by the King's Commissioners during twenty-two days of fruitless negotiation must have been great, for Lord Clarendon tells us that "they who had been most inured to business had "not in their lives ever undergone so great fatigue as "at that treaty." They seldom parted till between two and three o'clock in the morning, and some of the King's Commissioners were obliged to sit up later and prepare the papers that were required for the next day, and to write letters to the King at Oxford, "so that, if the treaty had continued much longer, it is very probable 66 many of the Commissioners must have fallen sick for "want of sleep."

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The failure of the treaty and the loss of Shrewsbury again turned the King's mind to the necessity of separating from the Prince, and he spoke to those whom he trusted most of his resolution to part, lest the enemy should, " upon any success, find them together, which, " he said, would be ruin to them both; whereas, though "he should fall into their hands, whilst his son was at liberty, they would not dare to do him harm."3 The preparations for the Prince's journey were ordered to be made with all haste, and those who were appointed to accompany him were commanded to hold themselves immediately in readiness. The Duke of Richmond

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Clarendon's Hist. of the Rebellion,' vol. v. p. 81.

2 Taken by Colonel Langham and Mitton.

Earnly, was dying of consumption, but, on

The Governor, Sir Michael

hearing of the town being

entered by treachery, rose from his bed, refused quarter, and was killed in his shirt.-Ibid., p. 67.

3 Ibid., p. 82.

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and Lord Southampton, though of the Prince's council, excused themselves from this duty. Sir Edward Hyde represented strongly to the King also that his office as Chancellor of the Exchequer made it more proper for him to be near his Majesty, but the King "was so 'positive on the point of his accompanying the Prince, "as to say, with some warmth, that, if he would not go, "he would not send his son." Lord Hopton was sent to Bristol to provide a house for the Prince, and to put the city into as good a state of security as was necessary for the safety of his residence there. To Lord Capell was assigned the duty not only of commanding the Prince's only guard, consisting of one regiment of horse and one of foot, but of raising these troops "on his "own credit and interest, there being, at that time, not "one man raised of horse or foot, nor any means in view "for the payment of them when they should be raised, "nor indeed for the support of the Prince's family or "his person. In so great a scarcity and poverty was "the King himself and his Court at Oxford." part of Lord Capell's estates were at his own disposal Lord Clarendon does not mention; possibly some of those which were the inheritance of his wife had not then undergone the penalty of sequestration; but whilst Lord Clarendon speaks of two regiments raised at Lord Capell's expense, the Journals of the House of Commons note the cutting down of 250l. worth of timber on his sequestered estates for the benefit of two widows whose husbands had suffered in the service of * Appendix J.

1 Clarendon's 'Life,' vol. i. P. 176.

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2

Clarendon's Hist. of the Rebellion,' vol. v. p. 84.

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