Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/191

] accordance with their advice, and in opposition to that of the council in Scotland, he resolved on suppressing the covenant by force.

In May he sent the marquis of Hamilton to Scotland, with orders to endeavour to soothe the people by assuring them that the liturgy and canons should only be exercised in a fair and gentle manner, and that the High Commission Court should be so remodelled as to be no grievance. If these promises did not satisfy them, as Hamilton must have known they would not, for Charles's promises were too well known to be of any value, he was to resort to any exercise of force that he thought necessary.

On the 3rd of June he arrived at Berwick, and sent to the nobility to meet him at Haddington, but no one appeared except the earl of Roxburgh, who assured him that anything but a full revocation of the canons and liturgy was hopeless. On reaching Dalkeith he was waited on by lord Rothes, who, on the part of the covenanters, invited him to take up his abode in Holyrood, as more convenient for discussion.

Hamilton objected to enter a city swarming with covenanters, and where the castle was already invested by their guards. These, it was promised him, should be removed, and the city kept quiet, on which he consented; and on the 8th of June he set forward. But he found the whole of the way, from Musselburgh to Leith, and from Leith to Edinburgh, lined with covenanters, fifty thousand in number, There were from five to seven hundred clergymen collected; and all the nobility and gentry assembled in the capital, amounting to five thousand, came out to meet and escort him in. All this he was informed was to do him honour, but he felt that its real design was to impress him with the strength of the covenant party.

Being settled in Holyrood, Hamilton received a deputation of the earls of the league, and asked them what they required to induce them to surrender opposition. They replied that in the first place they demanded the summons of a general assembly and a parliament. They then renewed the guard at the castle, and doubled the guards and watches of the city. The preachers warned the people to be on their guard against propositions. They informed the marquis that no English service book must be used in the royal chapel, and they nailed up the organ as an abomination to the Lord. They then waited on him, requesting him and his officers to sign the blessed covenant, and they hoped to be regarded as patriots and Christians. The ministers whom the oppressions of Wentworth had chased out of Ulster to make way for the Anglican service were there, inflaming the people by their details of the cruelties and broken promises of Charles and his lord-lieutenant in Ireland.

Hamilton saw that it was useless to publish Charles's proclamation, but wrote, advising him to grant them their demands, or to lose no time in appearing with a powerful army. Charles replied, desiring him to amuse the covenanters with any promises that he pleased, so that he did not commit the king himself. He was to avoid granting an assembly or parliament, but he added, "Your chief end being now to win time, they may commit public follies until I be ready to suppress them." The marquis, therefore, endeavoured to spin out the time by coaxing and deluding the covenanters. He promised to call a general assembly and a parliament, and redress all their grievances. When pressed too closely, he declared that he would go to London himself and endeavour to set all right with the king, but this was part only of the plan of gaining time, whilst Charles was preparing a fleet and army. But the Scotch were too wary to be thus deceived. They had information that troops were raising in England, and they made also their preparations. At the same time they waited on the marquis professing the most unabated loyalty, but resolute to have free exercise of their religion. Hamilton promised to present their address to the king, and set out on the 4th of July for England. He informed Charles of the real state of the country, and that the very members of the privy council were so infected by the covenant that he had not dared to call them together. But Charles was not to be induced to take any effective measures for pacifying the public mind of Scotland. His instructions to the marquis were to amuse the people with hopes, and even to allow of the sitting of a general assembly, but not before the first of November. He was even to publish the order for discharging the use of the service book, the canons, and the High Commission Court, but was to forbid the abolition of bishops, though the bishops were for the present not to intrude themselves into the assembly. They were, however, to be privately held to be essentially members of the assembly, and were to be one way or other provided for till better times.

These half measures were not likely to be accepted, but they would serve Charles's grand object of gaining time, and the marquis arrived with them in Edinburgh on the 10th of August. Three days after his arrival the covenanters waited upon him to learn how the king had received their explanations, and the marquis assumed them with much grace and goodness but when they heard that the bishops were not to be abolished, they treated his other offers with contempt, and Hamilton once more proposed to journey to England, to endeavour to obtain a full and free recall of all the offensive ordinances. Before taking his leave, as a proof of his earnestness, he joined with the earls of Traquair, Roxburgh, and Southesk, in a written solicitation to his majesty to remove all innovations in religion which had disturbed the peace of the country. By the 17th of September Hamilton was again at Holyrood. On the 21st he received the covenanters, and informed them that he had succeeded; that the king gave up everything; that an assembly was to be called immediately, and a parliament in the month of May next. That the king revoked the service book, the book of canons, the five articles of Perth, and the High Commission. The delighted covenanters were about to express their unbounded satisfaction and loyal gratitude, when the marquis added that his majesty only required them to sign the old confession of faith as adopted by king James in 1580 and 1590. This single reservation broke the whole charm; their countenances fell, and they declared that they looked upon this as an artifice merely to set aside their new bond of the covenant.

In all Charles's most solemn acts the cloven foot showed itself. Even when seeming most honest, there was something which awoke a distrust in him. He was not sincere, and he had not the art to look so. In any other monarch the positive assurance that the innovations on the religion