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294 took place in the house; but Cromwell was now fast advancing to the capital, and the house adjourned.



All these ominous proceedings wore lost on Charles; whilst he was negotiating, he was, in his usual manner, secretly corresponding with his party in various quarters, apologising for the smallest concessions, on the principle that he did not mean to abide by them. On the 24th of October, after conceding the command of the army, he wrote to Sir William Hopkins, "To deal freely with you, the great concessions I made to-day was merely in order to my escape, of which if I had not hope, I would not have done it." He had written on the 10th of October to Ormond in Ireland, with which country he had agreed to have no further intercourse, telling him that the treaty would come to nothing, and encouraging him privately to prosecute the scheme for a rising there with all his vigour, and to let all his friends know that it was by his command, but not openly, or this would, of course, knock the treaty on the head. But a letter of Ormond's fell into their hands, by which they discovered for what he had been sent over from France to Ireland, and the commissioners would not proceed till Charles had publicly written to deny any authority from him to Ormond. All the while that the negotiations were proceeding, he was expecting the execution of a plan for his escape; and he told Sir Philip Warwick that if his friends could not rescue him by the time he had demanded relief, yet he would hold it, till he had made some stone in that building his tombstone.

With such a man all treaty had long been hopeless; he would never consent to the demands upon him, and without his consent the whole war had been in vain; nay, did he consent, it was equally certain, that once at liberty, he would break every engagement. What was to be done? The independents and the army had come to a solemn conviction that there was but one way out of it. The king must be tried for his treason to the nation, and dealt with as any other incorrigible malefactor.

Cromwell, on his way back from Scotland, had called at Pontefract, to take vengeance on the assassins of colonel Rainsborough, but finding affairs pressing in London, left Lambert to reduce the place and secure the murderers, and hastened towards the capital. He had relied much on colonel Hammond to keep the king safe, and not to give him up into the hands of parliament, till full justice had been obtained. But no result accruing from the treaty, the commissioners prepared to take their leave of the king on the 28th. On the 25th Hammond had received an order from Fairfax to proceed to headquarters at Windsor, and on the 26th colonel Ewer, a zealous republican, arrived at Newport to take charge of the king, and confine him in Carisbrook Castle, or elsewhere.

Hammond, who knew well what was the meaning of this, refused to give up his charge, declaring that in all military matters he would obey his general, but that this charge was committed to him by the Parliament, and that he would yield it to no order but theirs. Ewer returned,