means were agreed to, and produced a considerable supply.

The other great measure attempted by this Convention, -the opening a negotiation for peace, proved abortive,the two Houses at Westminster refusing to receive any communication till they were recognized as a parliament, -and when they had been so recognized, complaining that "the persons now assembled at Oxford, who, contrary to their duty, had deserted the parliament, were put on an equal footing with the two Houses convened according to the known and fundamental laws, of the kingdom." This "little Senate," to which Hyde gave laws, concluded its session by a resolution, "that the Lords and Commons remaining at Westminster have rejected all offers of peace and treaty; and that for having made war against the King, counterfeited the King's Great Seal, and abetted the Scotch invasion, they are guilty of high treason, and ought to be proceeded against as traitors to the King and kingdom."' The desire for peace and the jealousy about religion, manifested by some of the members, had given much uneasiness, and the prorogation was a great relief to the King, and still more to the Queen, who hated the very name of parliament.

During the campaign which followed, in which Prince Rupert once more, at Marston Moor, lost a great battle by his blind impetuosity, Hyde remained at Oxford trying in vain to establish some order and regularity in the administration of the King's affairs. He received a flattering mark of his importance, in being specially exempted from pardon in some new demands made by the parliament at Westminster, in the autumn of 1644.

In the beginning of the following year, Hyde was the leading commissioner on the part of the King at the treaty of Uxbridge, the last time the two parties negotiated on any thing like equal terms,-subsequent events soon placing the King as a prisoner in the hands of his subjects. Seeing that there never would be another chance of pacification on the basis of preserving a limited monarchy, his exertions were now stupendous. "They that had been most inured to business had not in their lives ever undergone so great fatigue for twenty days toof the war, and then be utterly abolished—“which," adds Clarendon, “few wise men believed it would ever be." 1 Rush. v. 565. Ante.

gether as at that treaty. The Commissioners seldom parted during that whole time till two or three o'clock in the morning. Besides, they were obliged to sit up later who were to prepare such papers as were directed for the next day, and to write letters to Oxford," a task which fell chiefly on Hyde himself. He was particularly charged with the church question, and peremptorily refusing the entire abolition of episcopacy, he expressed a willingness to modify the church establishment, and disallow pluralities with cure of souls,-that the Bishop should keep constant residence in his diocese, and preach in some church within it every Sunday,-and that £100,000 should be raised out of Bishops' lands for the public service.'

On this and every other point the parliamentary Commissioners were inflexible, so that a constitutional settlement was impossible, and another trial of strength in the field was to determine whether England should fall under the sway of an absolute monarch or of a republic.

CHAPTER LXXVI.

CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD CLARENDON TILL HIS RETURN FROM THE EMBASSY TO MADRID.

B

EFORE the expected crisis arrived, Hyde's position was entirely altered. The King wished to remove Prince Charles, now a spoiled youth of fourteen, from the Court (as he said), "to unboy him," and the presence of some person of exalted rank was greatly wanted in the west of England, where Goring, Granville, and other royal generals were quarreling for the command, and exposing themselves to loss and discredit. An association of the gentry and yeomanry of the four western counties had petitioned that the Prince should be placed at their head, and notwithstanding his tender years he was invested with two commissions, one as General of all the King's forces in England, and another as Commander of the western association. But he was to be guided in every thing by a mixed council of military officers and civilians, and among the latter was Sir Edward Hyde, on 1 Hist. Reb. b. v. 2 Ibid. b. v. Rush. v. 892.

whose prudence and attachment the King placed such reliance. Although he was still to retain his office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, he very little relished this new appointment, but he deemed it his duty to submit. I suspect that the real cause of his removal was the dislike entertained for him by the more violent cavaliers, and by the Queen, who considered him little better than a Roundhead. From this time he had no influence whatever in the general direction of the King's affairs.

On the 5th of March, 1645, the Prince and his adviser took leave of Charles, now fated to destruction, and neither of them ever saw him more. They journeyed on to Bristol, then a royal garrison, where they stayed a considerable time, while efforts were vainly made to allay the jealousies of the rival Generals. The Council, at the suggestion of Hyde, wrote to the King, proposing that the Prince should be recalled; but before an answer was received, news arrived of the disastrous defeat at Naseby, and there was no safety for the royal family in the center of England. Fairfax advanced towards Bristol, and it was necessary to conduct the Prince further to the west. Had he remained, he must have been taken prisoner on the shameful surrender of that city by Prince Rupert.

The King, who had retreated into South Wales, now anxious for the safety of his son, summoned Hyde and Colepeper, who was likewise of the Prince's Council, to repair to him. The former was confined to his bed by illness, but the latter joined Charles at Brecknock, and brought back from him a mandate addressed to the Prince in these words: "My pleasure is, whensoever you find yourself in apparent danger of falling into the rebels' hands, that you convey yourself into France, and there to be under your mother's care, who is to have the absolute full power of your education in all things except religion." Hyde, who was always at enmity, either openly or secretly, with the Queen, and who, on public grounds, dreaded the consequences of her influence over her son, prevailed upon the Council to write a letter of expostulation, in which, while assuring the King that nothing should be omitted to save the Prince from falling into the hands of the Parliament, they besought that a place of refuge might be left to their discretion, and that at all events, Ireland or Scotland might be preferred to France.

In the meantime, under color of giving some directions as Chancellor of the Exchequer respecting the duty of customs, he went to Falmouth, and there secured a vessel to be ready at any moment for the escape of the Prince and his attendants.

The King wrote back a peremptory order that the Prince" should quit the kingdom; that he should not go to Scotland or Ireland; that he should go, if possible, to Denmark, and if not thither, rather to France or Holland." There were no means of reaching Denmark, and from Holland the Prince would have been sure to be transferred to France, and placed under the dominion of his mother, whereby a settlement of the nation would become impossible. Hyde and his colleagues, who now had the Prince in their care at Tavistock, addressed another remonstrance to the King, assuring him "that nothing but his commands should put the Prince in the power of the Parliament, but also telling him how strongly the followers of the Prince were disinclined that he should quit the kingdom; that many who were faithful would rather see him in the hands of the enemy than in France; and that the Council must advise that he continue still within the King's dominions, but if occasion required they would transport him to Scilly or to Jersey." At Truro they received an answer by which Charles acquiesced in their views, but reiterated the command that the Prince should leave England whenever there was serious hazard of his being captured by the parliamentary forces.

The victorious Fairfax was now on the borders of Cornwall, and intelligence was received by the Council of a design to seize the Prince's person, "to which they had reason to believe that some of his own servants were not strangers. They withdrew him to Pendennis Castle, but that was no safe asylum; for, on the 2nd of March, they learned from fugitives that Fairfax had taken possession of Bodmin. That night, about ten o'clock, the Prince attended by Hyde and others of his suite, embarked in the vessel that had been prepared for his escape, and in the afternoon of the second day arrived safely in Scilly. Here they found nothing but misery and destitution, and "Colepeper was sent into France to acquaint the Queen with his Highness being at Scilly,

1 Hist. Reb. b. v.

with the wants and incommodities of the place, and to desire supply of men and moneys for the defense thereof, and the support of his own person.

The Prince and his attendants remained in Scilly till the 16th of April, sometimes almost in a state of starvation, for they had only a scanty supply of provisions from Cornwall and from Normandy. They were likewise again in great danger of captivity. Lord Hopton, the King's brave but unfortunate general, who commanded the remnant of the royal army in the west, having been obliged to capitulate, an expedition was fitted out to pursue the Prince; a summons to surrender to the Parliament was sent in; and a hostile fleet of above twenty sail was seen hovering round the island. Happily, a violent storm arose, during which no ship could keep the sea, and the immediate danger was over. As soon as the storm had subsided, the Prince and Hyde set sail for Jersey, where they arrived in safety.

The great struggle now was, whether the Prince should remain at Jersey, or cross over to France. The Queen resorted to every artifice to get him into her power: and knowing that Hyde would never consent to this, she sent him by Colepeper a crafty letter directed to him at Scilly, intimating the friendly disposition of the French Court, "if the Prince, in his way to Jersey, should be necessitated by the contrary winds or the danger of the Parliament shipping, to touch in France." Hyde caused representations to be made to her of the injury likely to arise to the King's affairs from the Prince going to reside in France, assuring her that he was in perfect safety at Jersey; but she contrived to get from the uxurious King a written authority, signed with his own hand, empowering her to join his "positive commands" to hers that the Prince should repair to her immediately.'

After the King's flight from Oxford, and while between him, now a prisoner, and the victorious Parliament, negotiations were pending which might possibly have led to a settlement, if confidence had been placed in his sincerity (for higher terms were not asked than at Uxbridge),—Henrietta, with a certainty of offending every party in the state, and at the risk of raising the suspicion of a plot between the royalists and Cardinal Mazarine, sent over Lord Jermyn, Clar. Pap. ii. 230.

11 Hist. Reb. b. v.