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Rh cuted several of the members who had led on the opposition. The king, in spring, 1639, conducted an army of 20,000 to put down the Scots; but they met him with an equal force, and Charles was reduced to a pacification, which left the grounds of quarrel undecided. Next year, Charles raised another army; but the Scots anticipated him by invading England, and at Newburn on the Tyne overthrew a large detachment of his forces, and immediately after gained possession of Newcastle. All expedients for supporting his army now failed, and he seemed about to be deserted in a great measure by the affections of his subjects. A large portion of the English entered heartily into the views of the Scots. It was agreed by all parties that the northern army should be kept up at a certain monthly pay, till such time as a parliament should settle the grievances of the nation. Charles called together the celebrated assembly which afterwards acquired the name of the Long Parliament. This was only giving collective force and energy to the party which longed for his overthrow. He was obliged to resign his favourite minister, Strafford, as a victim to this assembly. Some of his other servants only escaped by a timely flight. He was himself obliged to abandon many points of his prerogative which he had hitherto exercised. Fearing that nothing but the sword could decide the quarrel, he paid a visit in autumn, 1641, to Scotland, and endeavoured, by ostensible concessions to the religious prepossessions of that nation, to secure its friendship, or at least its neutrality. In August, 1642, he erected his standard at Nottingham, and soon found himself at the head of a considerable army, composed chiefly of the country gentry and their retainers. The parliament, on the other hand, was supported by the city of London, and by the mercantile interest in general. At the first, Charles gained several advantages over the parliament; but the balance was restored by the Scots, who took side against the king, and, in February 1644, entered England with a large army. The cause of royalty from this time declined, and in May 1646, the king was reduced to the necessity of taking refuge in the camp of the Scottish army at Newark. He was treated with respect, but regarded as a prisoner, and after some abortive negotiations, was, January 30, 1647, surrendered to the commissioners of the English parliament, on the payment of the arrears due to the Scottish army. If Charles would have now consented to abolish episcopacy, and reign as a limited monarch, he would have been supported by the presbyterian party, and might have escaped a violent death. But his predilections induced him to resist every encroachment upon that form of ecclesiastical polity; and he therefore lost, in a great measure, the support of the presbyterians, who, though the body that had begun the war, were now sincerely anxious for a pacification, being in some alarm respecting a more violent class, who had latterly sprung up, and who, from their denial of all forms of church government, were styled Independents. This latter party, which reckoned almost the whole army in its numbers, eventually acquired an ascendancy over the more moderate presbyterians; and, the latter being forcibly excluded from parliament, the few individuals who remained formed themselves into a court of justice, before which the king was arraigned. Having been found guilty of appearing in arms against the parliament, Charles was by this court condemned to suffer death as a traitor, which sentence was put in execution, January 30, 1649, in front of his own palace of Whitehall, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and twenty-fifth of his reign.

The Scottish subjects of Charles had made strenuous exertions to avert this fearful issue; and by none was his death mourned with a deeper sorrow than by the very Covenanters who had risen in arms to repel his invasion upon their liberty of conscience. It was indeed impossible not to deplore the fate of that unfortunate and misguided monarch; but it cannot be doubted that it was mainly brought