SQ 'LIFE OF RICHARD BAXTER. put in motion, and, on its approach, thecity submitted without a defense. A few of the most active Presbyterian leaders were Wider the necessity of abandoning their places in the house of commons; and from this time, the proceedings of parliament were generally conformed to the wishes of the army. The king was all this while with the army ; and when the city, and parliament had submitted, he was allowed to reside at his palace of Hampton Court, where he appeared in great state, and was at- tended by throngs of people from the city and the country. Crom- well and Ireton conferred with him privately about restoring him to the throne. They made him better offers than those of the parliament ; and there is no sufficient reason to doubt the sincerity of their proposals. But he was still infatuated with the notion that neither party could exist without him, and thateach would willingly outbid the other to secure his name and influence. Thushe car- ried on a deceitful negotiation with both parties, till his duplicity was discovered byaletter to his wife, which Cromwell intercepted. Upon this discovery, Cromwell informed the king's most intimate attendant, that he would have no more to do with a man so unwor- thy of his confidence, and would no longer be responsible, as he had been, for his personal safety. The unhappy monarch, without seeming to have formed any definite plan of escape, fled from Hampton Court, and, a few hours afterwards, found himself, he hardly knew how, a prisoner in the Isle of Wight. Here he was soon visited by commissioners from parliament, offering him certain proposals, to which his assent was required as preliminary to any further negotiation. It was very distinctly inti- mated that, if he rejected these propositions, theywould proceed to settle the nation without him. The preliminaries now proposed were not materially different from the terms which he had formerly rejected. He now declined them once more, having already en- tered on a secret treatywith the Scottish commissioners,which was signed three days afterwards. In this treaty, the king, on the one. hand, promised that the covenant should be confirmed by act of parliament; that the Presbyterian discipline should be established in England for three years, and afterwards such a system as should be agreed on'in the mean time, the king and his household having the privilege df using those forms of worship to which they had been accustomed ; and that an effectual course should be taken to suppress all heresy and schism. The Scots, on the other hand, who had long been dissatisfiedwith their English friends, as wanting in zeal for the covenant, and who had become finally disgusted on witnessing the predominant influence of the military sectarians, promised to raise an army which should deliver the king from his imprisonment and restore him to his authority. This treatywas signed near the close of the year 1647.
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