ship sent by the Queen, which was lying off the island.
He was doomed to be disappointed in his hopes from Scotland. The
agreement he had made with the Scottish Commissioners was not
favourable enough to the religion of that country to please the
Scottish clergy; and they preached against it. The consequence
was, that the army raised in Scotland and sent over, was too small
to do much; and that, although it was helped by a rising of the
Royalists in England and by good soldiers from Ireland, it could
make no head against the Parliamentary army under such men as
Cromwell and Fairfax. The King’s eldest son, the Prince of Wales,
came over from Holland with nineteen ships (a part of the English
fleet having gone over to him) to help his father; but nothing came
of his voyage, and he was fain to return. The most remarkable
event of this second civil war was the cruel execution by the
Page 214
Dickens, Charles – A Child’s History of England
Parliamentary General, of SIR CHARLES LUCAS and SIR GEORGE LISLE,
two grand Royalist generals, who had bravely defended Colchester
under every disadvantage of famine and distress for nearly three
months. When Sir Charles Lucas was shot, Sir George Lisle kissed
his body, and said to the soldiers who were to shoot him, ‘Come
nearer, and make sure of me.’ ‘I warrant you, Sir George,’ said
one of the soldiers, ‘we shall hit you.’ ‘AY?’ he returned with a
smile, ‘but I have been nearer to you, my friends, many a time, and
you have missed me.’
The Parliament, after being fearfully bullied by the army – who
demanded to have seven members whom they disliked given up to them
– had voted that they would have nothing more to do with the King.
On the conclusion, however, of this second civil war (which did not
last more than six months), they appointed commissioners to treat
with him. The King, then so far released again as to be allowed to
live in a private house at Newport in the Isle of Wight, managed
his own part of the negotiation with a sense that was admired by
all who saw him, and gave up, in the end, all that was asked of him
– even yielding (which he had steadily refused, so far) to the
temporary abolition of the bishops, and the transfer of their
church land to the Crown. Still, with his old fatal vice upon him,
when his best friends joined the commissioners in beseeching him to
yield all those points as the only means of saving himself from the
army, he was plotting to escape from the island; he was holding
correspondence with his friends and the Catholics in Ireland,
though declaring that he was not; and he was writing, with his own
hand, that in what he yielded he meant nothing but to get time to
escape.
Matters were at this pass when the army, resolved to defy the
Parliament, marched up to London. The Parliament, not afraid of
them now, and boldly led by Hollis, voted that the King’s
concessions were sufficient ground for settling the peace of the
kingdom. Upon that, COLONEL RICH and COLONEL PRIDE went down to
the House of Commons with a regiment of horse soldiers and a
regiment of foot; and Colonel Pride, standing in the lobby with a
list of the members who were obnoxious to the army in his hand, had
them pointed out to him as they came through, and took them all
into custody. This proceeding was afterwards called by the people,
for a joke, PRIDE’S PURGE. Cromwell was in the North, at the head
of his men, at the time, but when he came home, approved of what
had been done.
What with imprisoning some members and causing others to stay away,
the army had now reduced the House of Commons to some fifty or so.
These soon voted that it was treason in a king to make war against
his parliament and his people, and sent an ordinance up to the
House of Lords for the King’s being tried as a traitor. The House
of Lords, then sixteen in number, to a man rejected it. Thereupon,