Two full years had gone round since the defeat
of Naseby had paralyzed the efforts and destroyed
the hopes of Charles Stuart's party. During the
whole remainder of that fatal year—even when
winter had set in with its most keen severity—the
arms of Cromwell swept like a hurricane over the
western and the midland counties. No leader
could compete with him on terms of vantage or
equality—no forces stand against him in the field—
no town or garrison resist his prowess. Chief
after chief was beaten in detail; stronghold upon
stronghold surrendered, or was stormed sword in
hand; till, to conclude the whole, Winchester and
the long-disputed post of Baring House were
taken, and Astley, on the 21st of March—the sole
commander of the king's now at the head of any
power—suffered so total a defeat at Stow-on-the-Wold,
being himself made prisoner, with sixteen

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hundred of his men, that he said frankly to his
captors, “My masters, you have done your work,
and may go play, unless you please now to fall out
among yourselves.”

His fortunes in the field being thus utterly disastrous,
after some fruitless efforts at negotiation
with the parliament and with the Independent
leaders—negotiation marked by all his usual chicane
and insincerity—on the fifth day of May
Charles threw himself into the quarters of the Earl
of Leven, then besieging Newark. How the Scots
dealt with their unhappy monarch—who, whatsoever
were his faults, undoubtedly confided in their
honour—the world knows, for it has become a brand
of national reproach. Treated, from the first moment
when they found he would not guarantee their
Covenant, and promise to establish Presbyterian
rule throughout the land, not as a prisoner merely,
but with indignity and insult—how, Judaslike, they
sold him to the parliament, and gave him up to
Skippon, like a mere thing of merchandise, on payment
of two hundred thousand pounds, is history.
But not so, that it was several times in the unfortunate
king's power to escape to France or Holland,
but that the menacing and angry letters of
his false queen, who had her own peculiar reasons
for dreading a reunion with her injured husband at
this moment, prevented him till it was all too late,
and, in effect, consigned him to the block. That
the uxorious and weak king was mainly prompted
to the war by the ill counsels of his adulterous
wife, is evident. Her pride—her education—
her hereditary prejudices—her selfwill—nay, her
very birth itself, made it but natural that she
should aim at arbitrary power, and urge her husband,
himself obstinate as weak, to that insane and
suicidal policy which ultimately proved his ruin.

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But that, herself in safety, she should, with cool
determined infidelity, insist on his remaining among
his deadly enemies, when hope was itself at an
end, would seem incredible, were it not fixed beyond
a doubt by the existence of her threatening
letters and his heart-broken answers.

Immediately on his surrender to the parliament
he was removed to Holmby Castle, where he remained
in close though honourable custody, served
and attended as a king, and suffered to indulge in
all his favourite recreations, though strictly watched,
and vigilantly hindered from any secret correspondence
with his friends, and even interdicted
from communion with ministers of the Episcopalian
church. At this very time there was in progress
a desperate struggle between the Presbyterians
and the army. The former, having already
utterly suppressed Episcopacy through the realm,
proceeded with the sternest and most bigoted intolerance
of persecution against all sects, Papist or
Protestant, clearly demonstrating their resolution
to subject the whole kingdom to a system of
church governance, connected with the state, under
the Presbyterian form, as fully organized as that
which they had just put down, and ten times more
obnoxious to domestic freedom—ten times more
rigid, fierce, inquisitorial, and tyrannical. Against
these measures the Independents, who, although a
minority in both houses, were formidable from the
talents of the leaders, the enthusiasm of the mass,
the real justice of their cause, and, above all, from
the fact that they possessed the power of the sword,
the army being almost unanimously in their favour,
offered all constitutional opposition—but to no purpose.
Petition after petition was presented, only
to be contemned and disregarded. Just at this
moment it was rumoured, and, as was shortly

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

proved, most truly, that the parliament was now
preparing to disband the army without payment of
its long arrears, and then to re-enlist it, under Presbyterian
officers, for the conquest of rebellious Ireland—
a plot most cunningly devised, could it have
been effected, for wresting their ascendency from
Ireton and Cromwell, and rendering themselves
unquestioned masters of the state. This instantly
gave rise to mutinies the most alarming; the army
organized itself into political divisions—the privates,
under their adjutators, elected two from every regiment,
and the officers forming a superior council—
and treated with the parliament, as a species of
fourth estate, holding itself under arms, and ready
for offensive action. At the first of this crisis
Cromwell opposed the mutineers with such apparent
energy and zeal, that, for a time, he lost his
popularity with his own soldiery; and, shortly afterward,
having been accused, or, at the least, suspected,
in the house, of underhanded tampering
with the mutineers, he cleared himself to the full
satisfaction of all present by a most vehement and
overpowering burst of indignation, mingled with
tears, and prayers, and explanations, such as removed
from every mind all doubts of his integrity.
Shortly, however, fresh suspicions were excited
among the Presbyterian leaders, who, dark and
wily in their own secret machinations, naturally
feared the like manœuvres from their political opponents.
By some means it leaked out that a new
Presbyterian army was to be raised forthwith, the
veteran host compelled to disband at the sword's
point, and Cromwell, Ireton, and Harrison—the
champions of the Independents—committed to the
Tower. Thus forced, in self-defence, to concur in
those very movements which they had first opposed
as mutiny—unless they should prefer to submit

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tamely to their own destruction, and to the overthrow
of all those principles of civil and religious
freedom for which they had so long and painfully
contended—the military chieftains acted with all
that rapid and decisive energy which had continually
signalized their conduct in the field. The instant
they had ascertained the truth of these reports,
one Joyce, a man of well-proved resolution,
though by rank only cornet in Whalley's regiment
of horse, was sent to Holmby to secure the person
of the king, who was conducted with all the speed
consistent with respect to the headquarters of the
army; and such was the considerate and honourable
bearing of the soldiery toward their captive
monarch, that, on Fairfax disavowing Joyce's enterprise
and offering to send him back to Holmby,
he at once replied that “naught but force should
urge him to it.” And, in good truth, the difference
of his situation was so great as well to justify his
preference; and could he even then have laid aside
dissimulation, and acted with straightforward singleness
of purpose, it is most certain he might
again have filled the throne of his fathers. Both
parties were, indeed, at this time willing, nay, desirous,
to reinstate the sovereign; for such a union
as that measure would have caused with the still
powerful, though beaten, faction of the cavaliers,
would have placed either permanently in the ascendant.
The Presbyterians proffered to replace
him on the throne, provided he would yield assent
to the substitution of a Presbytery for the established
Church of England, endowed with all its ancient
privileges, to the absolute suppression of all
other sects; and farther, to such cessions of prerogative
as would have left him but the shadow of
a sceptre. The Independents stipulated merely
for universal toleration—excepting only papistry,

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

which they insisted he should extirpate entirely,
root and branch—and for the full securing to all
men of every constitutional and civil privilege. In
either case his life and throne would have been
both secured to him; yet could he not refrain from
playing off the one against the other faction, till
both had learned that they could place no confidence
in his sincerity or truth.

While he continued with the army, all was, for
a long time, comparatively sunshine; at Cromwell's
intercession, his children—the young Dukes
of York and Gloucester, and the Princess Elizabeth—
were suffered constantly to visit him, and
to remain in his society. Two chaplains of his
own persuasion—an indulgence sternly refused
him by the parliament—were granted willingly by
the commanders of the soldiery, who, while they
asserted their own liberty to worship as they chose—
to preach and pray themselves, and listen to the
exhortations, not of licensed gospellers, but of their
own military saints—consistent at the least in this—
were willing to concede to others, unlike the bitterer
Presbyterians, the same rights which they
stickled for themselves. Fortified now by possessing,
not the person only, but the confidence and
favour of the king, the army moved toward London.
From Newmarket they marched to Royston,
Reading, and then Windsor; and at the latter place
Charles occupied his royal castle. Thence, after
some delay, advancing, they encamped on Hounslow,
their leaders holding constant although guarded
intercourse with their now trembling and half
discomfited opponents. Early in August the king
was reinstalled in Hampton Court, and all things
seemed to be once more his own. His yeomen
of the wardrobe and the guard attended him; he
was permitted to hold levees of all parties; all his

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

own favourite advisers were permitted to resort to
him, including several under the ban of parliament.
There was, as it were, a general amnesty and reconciliation.
Members of both the houses visited
him; Cromwell and Ireton held close and constant
intercourse with him; and so sincere were these
in their intention to befriend him, that they actually
commenced a correspondence with the queen's
emissaries, and suffered Berkeley, Legge, and Ashburnham
once more to take their places in his
council. The adjutators of the regiments elected
by the privates, and members from the council of
the officers, attended him with terms so advantageous,
that Sir John Berkeley openly declared, that
“a crown so near lost was never yet so easily recovered
as this would be, were things adjusted on
these terms.” Yet even then, hoping for something
more, he haughtily and scornfully rejected
and, plunging headlong into a fresh scheme with
Lauderdale, assented to the covenant, on the condition
that he should be brought at once to Westminster;
which he had the folly to believe would
place him where he was in power before the outbreak
of hostilities.

The citizens of London and the militia of that
city greedily entered on the scheme, and signed
the covenant by thousands! Both houses instantly
voted this an act of treason against England; but on
that very night their doors were forced by a tumultuous
and infuriate mob of Presbyterians, mingled
with concealed royalists—their persons were assailed
with violence and insult—their very lives endangered!
Compelled by imminent and sudden peril,
they passed a hasty vote sanctioning the return of
Charies, but the next instant voted an adjournment,
as unable to deliberate with liberty of conscience;
and straightway a large party of both houses, with

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

the speakers, Manchester and Lenthall, at their head,
withdrew from the disordered capital, and finally
repaired to seek protection in the camp at Hounslow.
In the mean time, the violent presumption
of the king, unduly elevated by his supposed success,
and instigated farther by the intriguing Ashburnham,
induced him actually to treat with contumely
the adjutators of the army, openly refusing
to concede the smallest jot of his prerogative, and
even intimating his intention again to force Episcopacy
on the Scots. Inflamed to madness by this
strange tergiversation, the soldiers flew to arms;
and a strong party forced their way into the chambers
of Lord Lauderdale, then in the palace, and
compelled him to return, having held no communication
with the king, direct to London. A few
days after this, with the most perfect shamelessness,
the king in public solemnly disavowed his
dealings with the Covenanters, and once more professed
entire confidence in the commanders of the
army, and feigned a vehement desire to come to
settled terms with them.

In London the remnant of the houses commenced
a weak and futile effort at resistance; they
called out the militia of the city, appointing Waller
and Massey to command their raw tumultuary
levies, repaired the fortifications, and, in short, had
every thing in readiness for action except energy
and courage. After a rendezvous on Hounslow
Heath, the parliamentary seceders were welcomed
by the excited soldiery with the loudest acclamations
and the sincerest tokens of affection. A convention,
held at Sion House, whereat Fairfax and
his superior officers assumed their seats in common
with the members of both houses, decided the
whole question; and on the sixth of August the
army entered London, without experiencing a

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

shadow of resistance, their colours flying and their
drums beating through the streets! That same
day the seceders were reinstated in their seats by
the strong hand of military power! the General
Fairfax was appointed Constable of the Tower,
and a thanksgiving voted with no dissentient voice
either of peers or commons! Thus was the triumph
of the Independents finally determined, and
themselves raised to power not soon again to fall.

It was the second day after the entrance of the
army that Sir Edgar Ardenne, elevated to the baronetcy
by his father's death—who, though becoming
gradually more and more doubtful of the purity
of Cromwell's motives, had played his part as gallantly
as heretofore throughout the long campaign
of '46 and '47, and even shared in the deliberations
and proceedings of the army as opposed to the yet
darker machinations of the parliament — walked
forth to seek for some solution of his apprehensions
in the deep wisdom of his friend John Milton.
His mind had, in truth, long been in a dubious and
unsettled state; the tyranny of Charles, against
which he had taken arms in the beginning, was
something palpable and obvious, as was his leaning
toward Romish doctrines, and his inclination
to fritter down as much as possible the broad distinction
between the Catholic and Episcopalian
churches. It was, however, rather against the
king's aggression upon civil freedom than against
the abuses of the church that he had warred, although
he saw the latter in so clear a light that he
felt no repugnance to make common cause with
those who viewed them as the greater evil. Now,
when the first oppressor was reduced, the first assailants
of religious freedom beaten and trampled
under foot, it seemed too probable that a new hydra-headed
tyranny would spring up from the

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

down-fallen despotism, and greater outrages on liberty
of conscience follow than those which had called
England into arms. Such was, indeed, the certain
course of things, if, in the present struggle, the parliament
should regain the ascendency—which body,
it was evident, under the strong plea of necessity,
had already most alarmingly extended their boasted
privilege, leaving all the assumptions of prerogative
immeasurably in the rear, and which, now
that the conflict was decided, showed little disposition
to lay down their dear-bought power. Himself
a follower of the Church of England, Sir Edgar
had seen little to find fault with in the old establishment,
except an over-rigour and a want of
toleration, which he would have extended to all
seets, except the Catholics, who were, in those
days, truly formidable, from their determined spirit
of conversion, their bigotry, and, above all, their
undissembled inclinatron toward arbitrary government.
He therefore looked upon the stern and
overstrained morality of the Presbytery with feelings
of so deep dislike, that he would almost have
surrendered all the gains of the late war to hinder
its establishment as a predominating state-religion,
although he would have gladly suffered it in common
with all other Protestant denominations.
With these views he had naturally joined the Independents
in their contest with the parliament;
but now that they had gained the day, he was yet
ill at ease. A fierce fanatical hoplocracy would
be, it was self-evident, the very worst of governments,
and utterly subversive of the English liberties
and coustitution. The wavering and dishonest
policy of Charles rendered his restoration all but
impossible; while, in the deep-laid and unfathomable
mysteries of Cromwell's course, Ardenne began
to foresee daily more and more cause for

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

apprehension and for caution. Still, such were the
rare talents of the man, such his inexplicable influence
over the minds of all whom he encountered,
that, while Sir Edgar doubted, he was compelled
to grant that he had no cause for doubt
which he could make clear to himself, much less
to others. At times he fancied his religious ecstasies
mere hypocritic jargon, adopted so to mystify
all eyes and veil his deep ambition; at others—
and that, too, most soberly and often—he believed
him a wild, self-deceiving hypochondriac—an erring,
though sincere enthusiast. Hitherto all that
Oliver had done had doubtless been of service to
the cause of veritable freedom; and it was certain
that his present opposition to the Presbyterians
might prove quite as unselfish, quite as beneficial
to the commonwealth as his preceding opposition
to the king. Still it was too apparent to escape
the foresight of a politican so clear-headed and
far-reaching as Sir Edgar, that, if the military faction
should gain firm foothold in the state, Cromwell
would not lack either talent, opportunity, or
power to mount even to the topmost summits of
ambition, if he should feel the inclination to attempt
them. And who, when all things most magnificently
tempting shall lie prone, subject to his
mere will, yea, courting him to grasp them—when
to dare almost seems a virtue—to refrain a despicable
weakness—who can, in such a situation, answer
for another—who even for himself?

Revolving such thoughts in his mind, and eager
to unbosom himself to some true friend, Sir Edgar
took his way, as has been said, the second evening
after the occupation of the city by the troops, toward
the dwelling of John Milton. The controversialist
had changed his domicil during this
troubled period, and now occupied a smaller house

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

in Holborn, opening backward upon Lincoln's Inn.
It was a lovely evening as ever smiled upon the
earth which Ardenne had selected for his visit to
the patriotic poet. The setting sun, that alchymist
of nature, shone out so brilliantly from an
unclouded sky, that even the great wilderness of
walls and chimneys, for once seen through a purer
medium than their accustomed canopy of fog and
smoke, looked cheerfully. The same grave-eyed
and sober-looking servitor who had admitted him
at his last visit six long years before, opened the
door; and, in reply to his inquiry, informed him
that Master Milton was within, but in his garden;
and, ushering him into a small parlour, decked with
the selfsame dark-green hangings, offered to call
his master; but, declining his civility, Sir Edgar
walked himself into the narrow stripe of garden,
planted with a few lilachs and laburnums, all besmirched
and dingy from the effects of the London
atmosphere. At first he saw not any thing of
him he sought; but, in a moment after, he distinguished
the full solemn voice, whose cadences,
once heard, could never be forgotten, proceeding
from a little arbour facing the western sun, and
covered by a mass of annual creepers such as
may easily be reared even upon the meanest plat
of soil. The sounds, however, were not as of one
engaged in conversation, but resembled rather the
accents of a person thinking aloud, or possibly
composing what might be afterward committed to
the safer guardianship of paper. The words
which reached his ear as he advanced were these,
at no long period subsequently published in the
poem styled II Penseroso.

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