Ireton, went to persuade him to return to the custody of the
Parliament. He preferred to remain as he was, and resolved to
remain as he was. And when the army moved nearer and nearer London
to frighten the Parliament into yielding to their demands, they
took the King with them. It was a deplorable thing that England
should be at the mercy of a great body of soldiers with arms in
their hands; but the King certainly favoured them at this important
time of his life, as compared with the more lawful power that tried
to control him. It must be added, however, that they treated him,
as yet, more respectfully and kindly than the Parliament had done.
They allowed him to be attended by his own servants, to be
splendidly entertained at various houses, and to see his children –
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Dickens, Charles – A Child’s History of England
at Cavesham House, near Reading – for two days. Whereas, the
Parliament had been rather hard with him, and had only allowed him
to ride out and play at bowls.
It is much to be believed that if the King could have been trusted,
even at this time, he might have been saved. Even Oliver Cromwell
expressly said that he did believe that no man could enjoy his
possessions in peace, unless the King had his rights. He was not
unfriendly towards the King; he had been present when he received
his children, and had been much affected by the pitiable nature of
the scene; he saw the King often; he frequently walked and talked
with him in the long galleries and pleasant gardens of the Palace
at Hampton Court, whither he was now removed; and in all this
risked something of his influence with the army. But, the King was
in secret hopes of help from the Scottish people; and the moment he
was encouraged to join them he began to be cool to his new friends,
the army, and to tell the officers that they could not possibly do
without him. At the very time, too, when he was promising to make
Cromwell and Ireton noblemen, if they would help him up to his old
height, he was writing to the Queen that he meant to hang them.
They both afterwards declared that they had been privately informed
that such a letter would be found, on a certain evening, sewed up
in a saddle which would be taken to the Blue Boar in Holborn to be
sent to Dover; and that they went there, disguised as common
soldiers, and sat drinking in the inn-yard until a man came with
the saddle, which they ripped up with their knives, and therein
found the letter. I see little reason to doubt the story. It is
certain that Oliver Cromwell told one of the King’s most faithful
followers that the King could not be trusted, and that he would not
be answerable if anything amiss were to happen to him. Still, even
after that, he kept a promise he had made to the King, by letting
him know that there was a plot with a certain portion of the army
to seize him. I believe that, in fact, he sincerely wanted the
King to escape abroad, and so to be got rid of without more trouble
or danger. That Oliver himself had work enough with the army is
pretty plain; for some of the troops were so mutinous against him,
and against those who acted with him at this time, that he found it
necessary to have one man shot at the head of his regiment to
overawe the rest.
The King, when he received Oliver’s warning, made his escape from
Hampton Court; after some indecision and uncertainty, he went to
Carisbrooke Castle in the Isle of Wight. At first, he was pretty
free there; but, even there, he carried on a pretended treaty with
the Parliament, while he was really treating with commissioners
from Scotland to send an army into England to take his part. When
he broke off this treaty with the Parliament (having settled with
Scotland) and was treated as a prisoner, his treatment was not
changed too soon, for he had plotted to escape that very night to a