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274 tolerated. They were as resolute sticklers for conformity as the catholics, or Charles and Laud themselves. They set up the same claims to be superior to the state, and allowed of no appeal from their tribunals to those of the civil magistrate. Having established the directory for the form of worship, they erected an assembly, with its synods, and divided the whole kingdom into provinces, the provinces into classes, the classes into presbyteries or elderships. They declared that "the keys of the kingdom of heaven were committed to the officers of the church, by virtue whereof they have power to retain and remit sins, to shut the kingdom of heaven against the impenitent by censures, and to open it to the penitent by absolution." They claimed a right to inquire into the private lives of individuals, and of suspending the unworthy from the sacrament.

All these assumptions the independents denied, and would not admit any authority over the free action of individual congregations. The commons, through the influence of Selden and "Whitelock, proposed to the assembly of divines nine questions respecting the nature and object of the divine right to which they aspired, and before they could answer these, the army and the independents, its leaders, had effected still more embarrassing changes. The king being conquered, and the Scots withdrawn, the contest lay no longer betwixt the king and parliament, but betwixt the presbyterians and independents, or, what was nearly synonymous, the parliament and the army.

The king was conducted to Holmby by easy journeys, and treated by his attendants with courtesy. The people Socked to see him, and showed that the traditions of royalty were yet strong in them. They received him with acclamations, uttered prayers for his preservation, and not a few of them pressed forward to be touched for the "evil." On his arrival at Holmby, he found a great number of ladies and gentlemen assembled to welcome him, with every demonstration of pleasure, and his house and table well appointed and supplied. He passed his time in reading, in riding about the country, and in different amusements—as chess and bowls, riding to Althorpe, or even to Harrowden, because there was no good bowling-green at Holmby. One thing only he complained of, and requested an alteration in. The parliament sent him clergymen of their own persuasion to attend him; he begged that any two out of his twelve chaplains might be substituted, but was refused. The presbyterian ministers allotted him were Thomas Herbert, and Harrington, the author of "Oceana," with whose conversation Charles was much pleased on all subjects but religion and form of government. But though Charles passed the bulk of his time in relaxation, he was not insensible to his situation; and when he had been left there for three months without notice, he addressed to them a letter, in which he proposed to allow presbyterian church government for three years, his own liberty of worship being granted, and twenty clergymen of the church of England admitted to the Westminster assembly; the question of religion at the end of that period to be finally settled by himself and the two houses in the usual way, and that the command of the army should also be left to parliament for ten years, and then to revert to him. The lords gladly assented, but the commons did not entertain it, and other matters soon drew their attention.

The presbyterians had, during the active engagements of the army, and the consequent absence of the leading independents, strengthened their ranks by many new members of parliament, and they now set about to reduce the power of their opponents by disbanding the greater part of the army. They decreed in February that three thousand horse, twelve hundred dragoons, and eight thousand four hundred foot, should be withdrawn from Fairfax's army and sent to Ireland, and that besides one thousand dragoons and five thousand four hundred horse, all the rest of the army should be disbanded, except as many soldiers as were necessary to man the forty-five castles and fortresses which remained. This would have completely prostrated the power of the independents; and Cromwell, on whose shrewd character and military success they now looked with terror, would have been first sacrificed, as well as Ireton, Ludlow, Blake, Skippon, Harrison, Algernon Sidney, and others, who had fought the real battle of the late contest. The heads of the presbyterians in parliament consisted of unsuccessful commanders—Hollis, Waller, Harley, Stapleton, and others, who hated the successful ones, both on account of their brilliant success, and of their religion. Fairfax, though a presbyterian, went along with his officers in all the love of toleration.

It was voted in the commons, not only that no officer under Fairfax should have higher rank than that of colonel, but that no one should hold a commission who did not take the covenant and conform to the government of the church as fixed by parliament. This would have been a sweeping measure, had the parliament not had a very obvious party motive in it, and had it paid its soldiers, and been in a condition to discharge them. But at this moment they were immensely in arrears with the pay of the army, and that body, feeling its strength, at once broke up its cantonments round Nottingham, and marched towards London, halting only at Saffron Walden. This movement created a terrible alarm in the city, parliament regarded it as a menace, but Fairfax excused it on the plea of the exhausted state of the country round their old quarters. The commons hastened to vote sixty thousand pounds towards the payment of arrears, which amounted to forty-three weeks for the horse and eighteen for the infantry. In the city, the council and the presbyterians got up a petition to both houses, praying that the army might be removed further from the city; but at the same moment a more starting one was in progress from the independents, addressed to "the supreme authority of the nation, the commons in parliament assembled." It not only gave this significant hint of its opinions where the real power of the state lay, but denounced the house of lords as assuming undue authority, and complained of the persecution and exclusion from all places of trust of those who could not conform to the church government imposed. The house of commons condemned this republican petition, and ordered the army not to approach nearer than twenty-five miles of London. A deputation was sent down to Saffron Walden, where Fairfax summoned a convention of officers to answer them. These gentlemen, on the mention of being sent to Ireland, said they mast know, before they could decide, what regiments, what commanders were to go, and whether they were sure of getting their arrears and their future