A Student's History of England, v. 2: 1509-1689

16. The First Battle of Newbury. 1643.– Charles did not, however, give up the game. Hurrying to Newbury, and reaching it before Essex could arrive there on his way back to London, he blocked the way of the Parliamentary army. Essex, whose provisions were running short, must force a passage or surrender. On September 20 a furious battle was fought outside Newbury, but when the evening came, though Essex had gained ground, the royal army still lay across the London road. It had, however, suffered heavy losses, and its ammunition being almost exhausted, Charles marched away in the night, leaving the way open for Essex to continue his retreat to London. In this battle Falkland was slain. He had sided with the king, not because he shared the passions of the more violent Royalists, but because he feared the intolerance of the Puritans. Charles's determination to conquer or perish rather than to admit of a compromise had saddened his mind, and he went about murmuring, 'Peace! peace!' He was weary of the times, he said, on the morning of the battle, but he would 'be out of it ere night.' He threw himself into the thick of the fight and soon found the death which he sought.

17. The Eastern Association. 1643.– Whilst in the south the resistance of Gloucester had weakened the king's power of attack, a formidable barrier was being raised against Newcastle's advance in the east. Early in the war, certain counties in different parts of the country had associated themselves together for mutual defence, and of these combinations the strongest was the Eastern Association, comprising the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge and Hertford. These five counties raised forces in common and paid them out of a common purse.

18. Oliver Cromwell. 1642-1643.– The strength which the Eastern Association soon developed was owing to its placing itself under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, a member of Parliament, who had taken arms when the civil war began, and who soon distinguished himself by his practical sagacity. "Your troops," he said to Hampden after the flight of the Parliamentary cavalry at Edgehill, "are, most of them, old decayed serving men and tapsters, and such kind of fellows, and their troops are gentlemen's sons, younger sons, and persons of quality; do you think that the spirits of such base and mean fellows will ever be able to encounter gentlemen that have honour and courage and resolution in them? You must get men of a spirit, and take it not ill what I say – I know you will not – of a spirit that is likely to go on as far as gentlemen will go; or else you will be beaten still." It was this idea which Cromwell, having been appointed a colonel, put in execution in the Eastern Association. He took for his soldiers sternly Puritan men, who had their hearts in the cause; but he was not content with religious zeal alone. Every one who served under him must undergo the severest discipline. After a few months he had a cavalry regiment under his orders so fiery and at the same time so well under restraint that no body of horse on either side could compare with it.

19. The Assembly of Divines. 1643.– Whilst the armies were fighting with varying success, Pym, with undaunted courage, was holding the House of Commons to its task of resistance. After the Royalist successes in June and July, the great peril of the Parliamentary cause made him resolve to ask the Scots for help. The Scots, thinking that if Charles overthrew the English Parliament he would next fall upon them, were ready to send an army to fight against the king, but only on the condition that the Church of England should become Presbyterian like their own. Already some steps had been taken in this direction, and on July 1 a Puritan Assembly of divines met at Westminster to propose ecclesiastical alterations, which were to be submitted to Parliament for its approval.

20. The Solemn League and Covenant. 1643.– In August, commissioners from the English Parliament, of whom the principal was Sir Henry Vane, arrived in Edinburgh to negotiate for an alliance. The result was a treaty between the two nations, styled the Solemn League and Covenant – usually known in England simply as the Covenant, but altogether different from the National Covenant, signed by the Scots only in 1638 (see p. 525). The Scots wished the English to bind themselves to 'the reformation of religion in the Church of England according to the example of the best reformed churches'; in other words, according to the Presbyterian system. Vane, however, who was eager for religious liberty, insisted on slipping in the words, 'and according to the Word of God.' The Scots could not possibly refuse to accept the addition, though, by so doing, they left it free to every Englishman to assert that any part of the Presbyterian system which he disliked was not 'according to the Word of God.' The Covenant, thus amended, was carried to England, and on September 25, five days after the battle of Newbury, was sworn to by the members of the House of Commons, and was soon afterwards ordered to be sworn to by every Englishman. Money was then sent to Scotland, and a Scottish army prepared to enter England before the opening of the next campaign.

21. The Irish War. 1641-1643.– Whilst Parliament looked for help to Scotland, Charles looked to Ireland. The insurrection in the north of Ireland in October, 1641 (see p. 533) had been the affair of the Celtic natives; but in December they were joined by the Catholic lords and gentry of Norman or English descent. For the first time in Ireland there was a contest between Catholic and Protestant, instead of a contest between Celts on one side, and those who were not Celts on the other. The allies were not likely to be very harmonious, as the Celts wished to return to their old tribal institutions, and the Catholic lords wished to be predominant in Parliament in agreement with the king. For the present, however, they were united by the fear that the Puritan Parliament in England and the Puritan Government in Dublin (see p. 533) would attempt to destroy them and their religion together. The outbreak of the Civil War in England, in 1642, made it impossible for either king or Parliament to send sufficient troops to overpower them. In May they had chosen a Supreme Council to govern revolted Ireland, and in October a General Assembly of the Confederate Catholics, as they styled themselves, was held at Kilkenny. The Assembly petitioned Charles for the redress of grievances, and in January, 1643, Charles opened negotiations with them, hoping to obtain an Irish army with which he might carry on war in England. In March they offered him 10,000 men if he would consent to allow a Parliament mainly composed of Catholics to meet at Dublin and to propose bills for his approval. Charles, who liked neither to make this concession nor to relinquish the hope of Irish aid, directed a cessation of arms in Ireland, in the hope that an agreement of some kind might ultimately be come to. In accordance with this cessation, which was signed on September 15, the coast-line from Belfast to Dublin, and a patch of land round Cork, was in the possession of the English forces, whilst a body of Scots, under Monro, held Carrickfergus, but all the rest of Ireland was in the hands of the Confederates.

22. Winceby and Arundel. 1643-1644.– As yet Charles had to depend on his English forces alone. In the beginning of September, Newcastle, lately created a Marquis, laid siege to Hull. If Hull fell, he would be able to sweep down on the Eastern Association. The Earl of Manchester – known as Lord Kimbolton at the time of the attempt on the five members – had been appointed general of the army of that Association, with Cromwell as his lieutenant-general. On October 11 Cromwell defeated a body of Royalist horse at Winceby. On the 12th, Newcastle raised the siege of Hull. All danger of Newcastle's marching southwards was thus brought to an end. In the South, Hopton succeeded in reaching Sussex, and, in December, took Arundel Castle; but the place was retaken by Sir William Waller on January 6, 1644. Here, too, the Royalist attack received a check, and there was no longer any likelihood that the king's forces would be able to starve out London by establishing themselves on the banks of the Thames.

23. The Committee of Both Kingdoms. 1644.– Pym, whose statesmanship had brought about the alliance with the Scots, died on December 8, 1643. On January 19 the Scots crossed the Tweed again under the command of Alexander Leslie (see p. 526), who had been created Earl of Leven when Charles visited Edinburgh in 1641. On the 25th, Sir Thomas Fairfax defeated, at Nantwich, a force of English soldiers who had been freed from service in Ireland by the cessation of arms, and had been sent by Ormond, who had recently been named by Charles Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to support the royalist cause in England. Pym's death, and the necessity of carrying on joint operations with the Scots, called for the appointment of some definite authority at Westminster, and, on February 16, a Committee of Both Kingdoms, composed of members of one or other of the two Houses, and also of Scottish Commissioners sent to England by the Parliament of Scotland, was named to control the operations of the armies of the two nations.

24. The Campaign of Marston Moor. 1644.– The spring campaign opened successfully for Parliament. In March, indeed, Rupert relieved Newark, which was hardly pressed by a Parliamentary force; but in March Waller defeated Hopton at Cheriton near Alresford, whilst in the North, Sir Thomas Fairfax, together with his father, Lord Fairfax, seized upon Selby, and joined the Scots in besieging York, into which Newcastle had been driven. In May, Manchester stormed Lincoln, and he too joined the forces before York. At the king's headquarters there was deep alarm. Essex and Waller were approaching to attack Oxford, but Charles slipping out of the city before it was surrounded despatched Rupert to the relief of York. At Rupert's approach the besiegers retreated. On July 2 Rupert and Newcastle fought a desperate battle on Marston Moor, though they were decidedly outnumbered by their opponents. The whole of the right wing of the Parliamentarians, and part of the centre, fled before the Royalist attack; but on their left, Cromwell restored the fight, and drove Rupert in flight before him. Cromwell did not, however, as Rupert had done at Edgehill, waste his energies in the pursuit of the fugitives. Promptly drawing up, he faced round, and hurled his squadrons upon the hitherto victorious Royalists in the other parts of the field. The result was decisive. "It had all the evidence," wrote Cromwell, "of an absolute victory, obtained by the Lord's blessing upon the godly party principally. We never charged but we routed the enemy. God made them as stubble to our swords." All the north of England, except a few fortresses, fell into the hands of Parliament and the Scots.

25. Presbyterians and Independents. 1644.– Cromwell spoke of Marston Moor as a victory of the 'godly party.' The Westminster Assembly of Divines had declared strongly in favour of Presbyterianism, but there were a few of its members – only five at first, known as the five Dissenting Brethren – who stood up for the principles of the Separatists (see p. 470) wishing to see each congregation independent of any general ecclesiastical organisation. From holding these opinions they were beginning to be known as Independents. These men now attracted to themselves a considerable number of the stronger-minded Puritans, such as Cromwell and Vane, of whom many, though they had no special attachment to the teaching of the Independent divines, upheld the idea of toleration, whilst others gave their adherence to one or other of the numerous sects which had recently sprung into existence. Cromwell, especially, was drawn in the direction of toleration by his practical experience as a soldier. It was intolerable to him to be forbidden to promote a good officer on the ground that he was not a Presbyterian. On one occasion he was asked to discard a certain officer because he was an Anabaptist. "Admit he be," he had replied; "shall that render him incapable to serve the public? Take heed of being too sharp, or too easily sharpened by others, against those to whom you can object little but that they square not with you in every opinion concerning matters of religion." He had accordingly filled his own regiments with men of every variety of Puritan opinion, choosing for promotion the best soldier, and not the adherent of any special Church system. These he styled 'the godly party,' and it was by the soldiers of 'the godly party,' so understood, that Marston Moor had been won.

26. Essex's Surrender at Lostwithiel. 1644.– Essex was the hope of the Presbyterians who despised the sects and hated toleration. Being jealous of Waller, he left him to take Oxford alone, if he could, and marched off to the West, to accomplish what he imagined to be the easier task of wresting the western counties from the king. Charles turned upon Waller, and fought an indecisive action with him at Cropredy Bridge, after which Waller's army, being composed of local levies with no heart for permanent soldiering, melted away. Charles then marched in pursuit of Essex, and surrounded him at Lostwithiel, in Cornwall. Essex's provisions fell short; and on September 2, though his horse cut their way out, and he himself escaped in a boat, the whole of his infantry capitulated.

27. The Second Battle of Newbury. 1644.– London was thus laid bare, and Parliament hastily summoned Manchester and the army of the Eastern Association to its aid. Manchester, being good-natured and constitutionally indolent, longed for some compromise with Charles which might bring about peace. Cromwell, on the other hand, perceived that no compromise was possible with Charles as long as he was at the head of an army in the field. A second battle of Newbury was fought, on October 27, with doubtful results: Manchester showed little energy, and the king was allowed to escape in the night. Cromwell, to whom his sluggishness seemed nothing less than treason to the cause, attacked Manchester in Parliament, not from personal ill-will, but from a desire to remove an inefficient general from his command in the army. Two parties were thus arrayed against one another: on the one side the Presbyterians, who wanted to suppress the sects and, if possible, to make peace; and on the other side the Independents, who wanted toleration, and to carry on the war efficiently till a decisive victory had been gained.

CHAPTER XXXV
THE NEW MODEL ARMY. 1644-1649

LEADING DATES

Reign of Charles I., 1625-1649

• Battle of Naseby June 14, 1645

• Glamorgan's Treaty Aug. 25, 1645

• Charles in the hands of the Scots May 5, 1646

• Charles surrendered by the Scots Jan. 30, 1647

• Charles carried off from Holmby June 5, 1647

• The Army in Military Possession of London Aug. 7, 1647

• Charles's Flight from Hampton Court Nov. 11, 1647

• The Second Civil War April to Aug., 1648

• Pride's Purge Dec. 6, 1648

• Execution of Charles Jan. 30, 1649

1. The Self-denying Ordinance and the New Model. 1645.– Cromwell dropped his attack on Manchester as soon as he found that he could attain his end in another way. A proposal was made for the passing of a Self-denying Ordinance,²³ which was to exclude all members of either House from commands in the army. The Lords, knowing that members of their House would be chiefly affected by it, threw it out, and the Commons then proceeded to form a New Model Army – that is to say, an army newly organised, its officers and soldiers being chosen solely with a view to military efficiency. Its general was to be Sir Thomas Fairfax, whilst the lieutenant-general was not named; but there can be little doubt that the post was intended for Cromwell. After the Lords had agreed to the New Model, they accepted the Self-denying Ordinance in an altered form, as, though all the existing officers were directed to resign their posts, nothing was said against their re-appointment. Essex, Manchester, and Waller resigned, but when the time came for Cromwell to follow their example, he and two or three others were appointed to commands in the new army. Cromwell became Lieutenant-General, with the command of the cavalry. The New Model was composed partly of pressed men, and was by no means, as has been often said, of a sternly religious character throughout; but a large number of decided Puritans had been drafted into it, especially from the army of the Eastern Association; and the majority of the officers were Independents, some of them of a strongly Sectarian type. The New Model Army had the advantage of receiving regular pay, which had not been the case before; so that the soldiers, whether Puritans or not, were now likely to stick to their colours.

2. Milton's 'Areopagitica.' 1644.– By Cromwell, who in consequence of his tolerance was the idol of the Sectarians in the army, religious liberty had first been valued because it gave him the service of men of all kinds of opinions. On November 24, 1644, Milton, some of whose books had been condemned by the licensers of the press appointed by Parliament, issued Areopagitica, in which he advocated the liberty of the press on the ground that excellence can only be reached by those who have free choice between good and evil. "He that can apprehend," he wrote, "and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain – he is the true warfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and seeks her adversary, but slinks out of the race, when that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat." Liberty was good for religion as much as it was for literature. "These are the men," he continued, "cried out against for schismatics and sectaries, as if, while the temple of the Lord was building, there should be a sort of irrational men who could not consider there must be many schisms and many dissections made in the quarry and in the timber ere the house of God can be built." The perfection of the building consisted "in this – that out of many moderate varieties and brotherly dissimilitudes that are not vastly disproportional, arises the goodly and the graceful symmetry that commends the whole pile and structure."

3. The Execution of Laud. 1645.– In Parliament, at least, there was one direction in which neither Presbyterian nor Independent was inclined to be tolerant. They had all suffered under Laud, and Laud's impeachment was allowed to go on. The House of Lords pronounced sentence against him, and on January 10, 1645, he was beheaded. The Presbyterians had the majority in the House of Commons, and they were busy in enforcing their system, as far as Parliamentary resolutions would go. The Independents had to wait for better times.

4. Montrose and Argyle. 1644.– For the present, however, the two parties could not afford to quarrel, as a powerful diversion in the king's favour was now threatening them from Scotland. The Marquis of Montrose, who, in the Bishops' Wars, had taken part with the Covenanters, had grown weary of the interference of the Scottish Presbyterian clergy with politics, and still more weary of the supremacy in Scotland of the Marquis of Argyle, who had all the organisation of the Presbyterian Church at his disposal. Montrose saw that, though Argyle was too strong for him in the Lowlands, it was possible to assail him with effect in the Highlands, where he had made many enemies. In the Lowlands Argyle was regarded as a Scottish nobleman. In the Highlands he was the chief of the clan of the Campbells, which had often unscrupulously extended its borders at the expense of its neighbours, especially at the expense of the various clans of the Macdonalds. Montrose therefore hoped that if he threw himself into the Highlands, he might make use of the enmity of these clans against the Campbells to crush Argyle and to exalt the king.

5. Montrose in the Highlands. 1644-1645.– In 1644, shortly after the battle of Marston Moor, Montrose made his way to the Highlands with only two followers. He was the first to discover the capacity of the Highlanders for war. With their help, and with the help of a trained Irish contingent, mostly composed of the descendants of Highlanders who had emigrated to Ireland, he beat the Scottish forces at Tippermuir and Aberdeen, and then, crossing the mountains, amidst the snows of winter, harried the lands of the Campbells. On February 2, 1645, he defeated Argyle's clansmen at Inverlochy, whilst Argyle himself – who was no warrior – watched their destruction from a boat. Wherever Montrose went the heavy Lowland troops toiled after him in vain. On May 9 he overthrew another army under Baillie at Auldearn. Leven's Scottish army in Yorkshire had enough to do to bar the way against Montrose in case of his issuing from the mountains and attempting to join forces with Charles in England. With any other troops Montrose would probably have made the attempt already; but his Highlanders were accustomed to return home to deposit their booty in their own glens as soon as a battle had been won, and, therefore, victorious as he had been, he was unable to leave the Highlands.

6. The New Model Army in the Field. 1645.– The New Model army started on its career in April. Cromwell, with his highly-trained horse, swept round Oxford, cutting off Charles's supplies; whilst Fairfax was sent by the Committee of Both Kingdoms (see p. 542) to the relief of Taunton, which had been gallantly holding out under Robert Blake. A detachment of Fairfax's force sufficed to set Taunton free. His main force was stupidly sent by the Committee to besiege Oxford, though the king was marching northwards, and might fall upon Leven's Scots as soon as he reached them. On May 31, however, Charles turned sharply round, and stormed Leicester. The popular outcry in London compelled the Committee to allow their commander-in-chief to act on his own discretion; and Fairfax, abandoning the siege of Oxford, marched straight in pursuit of the Royal army.

7. The Battle of Naseby. 1645.– On June 14 Fairfax overtook the king at Naseby. In the battle which followed, the Parliamentary army was much superior in numbers, but it was largely composed of raw recruits (see p. 545), and its left wing of cavalry – under Ireton, who, in the following year, became Cromwell's son-in-law – was routed by the king's right, under Rupert. As at Edgehill, Rupert galloped hard in pursuit, without looking back. The Parliamentary infantry in the centre was by this time pressed hard, but Cromwell, on the right, at the head of a large body of cavalry, scattered the enemy's horse before him. Then, as at Marston Moor, he halted to see how the battle went elsewhere. Sending a detachment to pursue the defeated Royalists, he hurled the rest of his horse on the king's foot, who were slowly gaining ground in the centre. In those days, when half of every body of infantry fought with pikes, and the other half with inefficient muskets, it was seldom that foot-soldiers could withstand a cavalry charge in the open, and the whole of Charles's infantry, after a short resistance, surrendered on the spot. Rupert returned only in time to see that defeat was certain. The king, with what horse he could gather round him, made off as fast as he could. The stake played for at Naseby was the crown of England, and Charles had lost it.

8. The Results of Naseby. 1645.– Disastrous as Charles's defeat had been, he contrived to struggle on for some months. The worst thing that befel him after the battle was the seizure of his cabinet containing his correspondence, which revealed his constant intrigues to bring alien armies – French, Lorrainers, and Irish – into England. It was, therefore, in a more determined spirit than ever that Parliament carried on the war. After retaking Leicester, on June 18, Fairfax marched on to the West, where the king's eldest son, Charles, Prince of Wales, had been since the summer of 1644, and where debauched and reckless Goring was at the head of a Royalist army. On July 10 Fairfax routed him at Langport, and on July 23 took Bridgwater. Then, leaving forces to coop up Goring's remaining troops, Fairfax turned eastward, took Sherborne on August 2, whilst the Scots, who after Naseby had marched southwards, were besieging Hereford. On September 1, however, the king relieved Hereford, and fancied he might still retrieve his fortunes. On September 10, he received a severe blow. Fairfax stormed the outer defences of Bristol, and Rupert, who commanded the garrison, at once capitulated. There can be little doubt that he had no other choice; but Charles would hear no excuse, and dismissed him from his service.

9. Charles's Wanderings. 1645.– Charles's hopes were always springing up anew, and now that Rupert had failed him, he looked to Montrose for deliverance. Montrose, on July 2, had won another victory at Alford, and, on August 15, a still more crushing victory at Kilsyth, after which he had entered Glasgow, and received the submission of the Lowlands. Charles marched northward to meet him, but on the way was met and defeated by the Parliamentary general, Poyntz, on Rowton Heath. Almost immediately afterwards he heard the disastrous news that David Leslie, an able officer who had won renown in the German wars, and had fought well at Marston Moor, had been despatched from the Scottish army in England, had fallen upon Montrose at Philiphaugh, at a time when he had but a scanty following with him, and had utterly defeated him. After this Cromwell reduced the South, capturing Winchester and Basing House, whilst Fairfax betook himself to the siege of Exeter. In October, Charles, misled by a rumour that Montrose had recovered himself, made one more attempt to join him; but he was headed by the enemy, and compelled to retreat to Oxford, where, with all his followers ardently pleading for peace, he still maintained that his conscience would not allow him to accept any terms from rebels, or to surrender the Church of England into their hands.

10. Glamorgan in Ireland. 1645-1646.– Not one of Charles's intrigues with foreign powers did him so much harm as his continued efforts to bring over an Irish army to fight his battles in England. In 1645 he despatched the Roman Catholic Earl of Glamorgan to Ireland, giving him almost unlimited powers to raise money and men, and to make treaties with this object, but instructing him to follow the advice of Ormond. When Glamorgan arrived in Ireland, in August, he found that the Confederate Catholics were resolved to demand that all the churches in Ireland, except the few still in the hands of the English, should be given permanently to the Catholics, and that permission should be granted to their clergy to exercise jurisdiction in matters spiritual and ecclesiastical. Though Glamorgan knew that Charles had never approved of these concessions, he signed a treaty, on August 25, 1645, in which he granted all that was asked, in consideration of an engagement by the Confederates to place him at the head of 10,000 Irishmen destined for England. Before anything had been done, a Papal Nuncio, Rinuccini, landed in Ireland and required fresh concessions, to which Glamorgan readily assented. On January 16, 1646, however, before Glamorgan's army was ready to start, the treaty which he had made in August became known at Westminster; and, though Charles promptly disavowed having authorised its signature, there remained a grave suspicion that he was not as innocent as he pretended to be.

11. The King's Flight to the Scots. 1646.– In the beginning of 1646 the Civil War virtually came to an end. On March 14, Charles's army in the West surrendered to Fairfax in Cornwall, and in the same month the last force which held the field for him was overthrown at Stow-on-the-Wold. Many fortresses still held out, but, as there was no chance of relief, their capture was only a question of time; and though the last of them – Harlech Castle – did not surrender till 1647, there was absolutely no doubt what the result would be. Charles, now again at Oxford, had but to choose to whom he would surrender. He chose to give himself up to the Scots, whose army was at the time besieging Newark. He seems to have calculated that they would replace him on the throne without insisting on very rigorous conditions, thinking that they would rather restore him to power than allow the English army, formidable as it was, to have undisputed authority in England, and possibly to crush the independence of Scotland. The Scots, on the other hand, seem to have thought that, when Charles was once in their power, he must, for his safety's sake, agree to establish Presbyterianism in England, by which means the party which would of necessity lean for support on themselves would have the mastery in England. On May 5, 1646, Charles rode in to the quarters of the Scottish army at Southwell, a few miles from Newark.

12. Charles at Newcastle. 1646.– Newark at once surrendered, and Charles was conveyed to Newcastle, where, as he refused to consent to the establishment of Presbyterianism in England, he was practically treated as a prisoner. At the end of 1645 and the beginning of 1646 there had been fresh elections to fill up seats in the House of Commons left vacant by Royalists expelled for taking the king's part; but, though many Independent officers were chosen, there was still a decidedly Presbyterian majority. On July 14 propositions for peace were delivered to Charles on behalf of Parliament and the Scots. He was to surrender his power over the militia for twenty years, to take the Covenant, and to support Presbyterianism in the Church. Charles, in his correspondence with his wife, showed himself more ready to abandon the militia than to abandon episcopacy; whilst she, being a Roman Catholic, and not caring for bishops whom she counted as heretics, advised him at all hazards to cling to the command of the militia. Charles hoped everything from mere procrastination. "All my endeavours," he wrote to the queen, "must be the delaying of my answer till there be considerable parties visibly formed" – in other words, till Presbyterians and Independents were ready to come to blows, and, therefore, to take him at his own price. In order to hasten that day, he made in October a proposal of his own, in which he promised, in case of his being restored to power, to establish Presbyterianism for three years, during which time the future settlement of the Church might be publicly discussed. He, however, took care to make no provision for the very probable event of the discussion leaving parties as opposed to one another as they had been before the discussion was opened, and it was obvious that, as he had never given the royal assent to any Act for the abolition of episcopacy, the whole episcopal system would legally occupy the field when the three years came to an end. The Presbyterians would thus find themselves checkmated by an unworthy trick.