ENGLAND. 223 



of the parliament's commissioners, probably not suspecting the con- 

 sequences. 



The presbyterians were now more inclined than ever to make peace 

 with the king ; but they were no longer masters, being forced to re- 

 ceive .aws from the army and the independents. The army now 

 avowed their intentions. They first by force took Charles out of the 

 hands of the commissioners, June 4, 1647, and then, dreading that a 

 treaty might still take place with the king, they imprisoned 41 of the 

 presbyterian members, voted the house of peers to be useless, and 

 reduced that of the commons to 150, most of them officers of the 

 army. In the mean time, Charles, who unhappily promised himself 

 relief from those dissensions, was carried from prison to prison, and 

 sometimes cajoled by the independents with hopes of deliverance, 

 but always narrowly watched. Several treaties were begun, but mis- 

 carried ; and he had been imprudent enough, after his effecting an 

 escape, to put himself into the hands of colonel Hammond, the par- 

 liament's governor of the Isle of Wight. A fresh negociation was 

 commenced, and almost finished, when the independents, dreading 

 the general disposition of the people for peace, and strongly per- 

 suaded of the insincerity of the king, once more seized upon his 

 person, brought him prisoner to London, carried him before a court of 

 justice of their own erecting ; and, after an extraordinary trial, his 

 head was cut off, before his own palace at Whitehall, on the 30th of 

 January, 164S-9, being the 49th year of his age, and the 24th of his 

 reign. 



Charles is allowed to have had many virtues ; and notwithstanding 

 the errors of his government, his death was exceedingly lamented by 

 great numbers; and many, who, in the course of the civil war, had 

 been his great opponents in parliament, became converts to his cause, 

 in which they lost their lives and fortunes. 



By this time, Cromwell, who hated subordination to a parliament, 

 had the address to procure himself to be declared commander-in-chief 

 of the English army. Admiral Blake, and the other English admi- 

 rals, carried the terror of the English name by sea to all quarters of 

 the globe ; and Cromwell, having now but little employment, began 

 to be afraid that his services would be forgotten ; for which reason he 

 went, April 20, 1653, without any ceremony, with about 300 mus- 

 keteers, and dissolved the parliament, opprobriously driving all the 

 members, about a hundred, out of their house. He next annihilated 

 the council of state, with whom the executive power was lodged, and 

 transferred the administration of government to about 140 persons, 

 whom he summoned to Whitehall, on the 4th of July, 1653. 



The war with Holland, in which the English were again victorious, 

 "till continued. Seven bloody engagements by sea were fought ia 

 little more than the compass of one year ; and in the last, which was 

 decisive in favour of England, the Dutch lost their brave admiral, 

 Van Tromp. Cromwell all this time wished to be declared king ; 

 but he perceived that he must encounter unsurmountable difficulties 

 from Fleetwood and his other friends, if he should persist in his reso- 

 lution. He was, however, declared lord protector of the common- 

 wealth of England ; a title under which he exercised all the power 

 that had been formerly annexed to the regal dignity. No king ever 

 acted, either in England or Scotland, more despotically in some re- 

 spects than he did ; yet no tyrant ever had fewer real friends ; and 

 even those few threatened to oppose him, if he should take upon him 



