sellors, and so ingratiating His Majesty with all his people, who indeed show a zeal and affection beyond all expression." 1 Sept. 3. of confi dence. Demand that offices should be the consent of Parliament. It is easy to conjecture what were the thoughts which arose in Hampden's mind as he looked for the first time on the fair town in the new-found loyalty which had been bought by so great and so suspicious a self-surrender. Charles was Charles full in the highest spirits. "You may assure everyone,” he wrote to Nicholas, "that now all difficulties are passed here." He was not long in discovering that he had been too sanguine. In Parliament Argyle was relentless in demanding that no political or judicial offices should be filled up without the approval of Parliament, and Argyle's filled up with supporters were in a clear majority in the House. He was not indeed all-powerful. There were many amongst the nobility, besides the imprisoned Montrose, who struggled hard against this new constitutional system, in which a majority of country gentlemen and burghers was to be welded, in the hands of one popular nobleman, into a political force to beat down the power of the great families. They had never intended to throw off the yoke of Charles in order to become the servants of Argyle. "If this be what you call liberty," said the Earl of Perth, "God send me the old slavery again." "2 Charles might choose his own side. He might put himself at the head of the popular party or of the aristocratic party. It needed more decision than he possessed to do either with effect. "His Majesty's businesses," wrote Endymion Porter, "run in their wonted channel-subtile designs of gaining the popular opinion, and weak executions for the upholding of monarchy." 3 Charles himself did not recognise the realities of the situation. He continued to hopefulness. write cheerfully to the Queen. Argyle, he told her, had promised to do him faithful service. Leslie was equally devoted to him, and had driven with him round the town amidst the shouts of the people.4 The Queen, we may be sure, Sept. 7. Charles's 1 Bere to Pennington, Aug. 30, S. P. Dom. 3 Porter to Nicholas, Sept. 7, ibid. ♦ Giustinian to the Doge, Sept. 12, Ven. Transcripts, R. O. 27' knew well enough what it was that he expected from the devotion of Leslie and Argyle. During the weeks of his absence, she had been again urging the representatives of the Pope on the Continent to send her that supply of money which was so sorely needed. Might it not, she had asked, be sent to Cologne, only to be made over to herself if she could show that there was indeed a sufficient cause for its To this, as to all similar pleas, the Papal authorities were deaf.1 The Queen's application to the Pope. use. of officers. Charles's eyes were too steadily fixed on England for him to struggle very pertinaciously against the Scottish Parliament. Sept. 16. On the 16th an Act was passed, according to which Act for the the King was to choose his officers' subject to the choice of officers. advice of Parliament.'2 Charles, perhaps, thought that the mere form of concession would be enough. The next day he gave in a list of councillors, and on the 20th he added the names of the new officers of state. He proposed Sept. 20. Nomination that Loudoun should be Chancellor, and that Lanark, who with his brother Hamilton, had now attached himself to Argyle, should remain Secretary of State. Roxburgh, a steady partisan of the King, was to keep the Privy Seal; and Morton, who was a still stronger Royalist than Rox burgh, was to be Lord Treasurer. At once Argyle rose to Opposition declaim against Morton, his own father-in-law, as a of Argyle. man deeply in debt, and incapable of so great a trust. Many of the nobility urged Charles to stand by his nomination. Morton, however, relieved him from his difficulty by voluntarily relinquishing his claims.3 Sept. 22. Charles ceases to Charles was deeply mortified. Argyle, he found, meant to be master in Scotland. The blow was the more bitterly felt because it was accompanied by a still graver disappointment. The troops which had hitherto been kept on foot, and which Charles had expected to be placed at his own disposal for purposes which he, perhaps expect help from Scotland. 1 The Archbishop of Tarsis to Barberini, Aug. 28 not very definitely, entertained, were dismissed to their homes.' From this moment, as far as it is possible to gather from the disjointed fragments of evidence which have come down to us, he ceased to expect any active aid from Scotland. It would be enough if matters could now be patched up in Edinburgh, so as to enable him to return to England without the appearance of utter defeat. Even this was difficult to obtain. The Parliament now claimed not merely the right to reject the King's nominee, but Demands of the right of presenting for the Royal approval a Parliament. nominee of their own. The barons, too, or lesser gentry, asked that their votes might be given by ballot, and that no one who had taken the King's part in the late war should be admitted to any office in the State.2 In these demands lay the secret of Argyle's strength. He had against him the discontented nobles, but he had the Scottish nation at his back. In the minds of those country Argyle's party. gentlemen and townsmen who followed him was the fixed idea that they had been fighting for a great cause, and that Roxburgh and Morton had deserted that cause in its hour of trial. Charles understood nothing of the kind. He wanted to shut his eyes to the past as though it had never been. No wonder Charles's spirits were as depressed now as they had lately been buoyant. "There was never King so insulted over," wrote a sympathising bystander. "It would pity any man's heart to see how he looks; for he is never at quiet amongst them, and glad he is when he sees any man that he thinks loves him. Yet he is seeming merry at meat." Sept. 25. Charles's depression of spirits. Sept. 29. The foes of Argyle were fast growing beyond Charles's control. They bore Hamilton a special hatred as a deserter from their cause. Lord Ker, Roxburgh's turbulent Hamilton son, who had sided with the Covenanters in the late troubles, sent him a challenge as a traitor to his King. Hamilton gave information to Charles, and Ker was challenged by Ker. 1 Giustinian to the Doge, 2 Balfour, iii. 71. Sept. 24, Ven. Transcripts, R. O. Oct. 4 Baillie, i. 390. Sept. 30. Ker forced forced to make an apology. The next day he was summoned before the Parliament to give an explanation of his conduct. He came with a following of 600 armed to apologise. men, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that he was induced to acknowledge that he had been in fault.1 Loudoun chancellor. Nothing had yet been done to bring to a close the dispute about the appointment of officers. Loudoun's nomination to the Chancellorship was at last accepted. For the Treasurer's place the king now named Almond, who had, indeed, been Lieutenant-General of the Army of Invasion, but who had joined Montrose in signing the Bond of Cumbernauld. The Parliamentary majority would not hear of him, and its claim to a direct election of officers was again put forward. Oct. I. Almond nominated for treasurer. Day after day passed away without bringing an agreement. Around the King passion was waxing fiercer from hour to hour. Montrose, from behind his prison bars, watched the seething of Montrose's the angry tide. Twice he wrote to Charles, offering letters. to make revelations of the utmost importance to his crown and dignity. Twice Charles refused to listen to vague accusations. He believed, he said, that a man in Montrose's condition would say much to have the He had made up his mind to come to terms with the Parliament. On the following Oct. 9. liberty to come to his presence. Oct. 10. ready to The King is day he sent a message to Almond asking him to withdraw his claims to the Treasurership, as Morton had done before." give way. It was only natural that Charles, in making this concession, should make it in some ill-humour. It was only natural, too, His displeasure with Hamilton. that his displeasure should vent itself on Hamilton, who had promised so much and had performed so little. Lanark's pleadings on his brother's behalf only drew from Charles the cold reply that he believed that he was himself 'an honest man, and that he had never heard any 1 Wemyss to Ormond, Sept. 25, Oct., Carte, Original Letters, i. 1, 5. Balfour, iii. 36. 2 Depositions of W. Murray and the Earl of Almond, Hist. MSS. Com. Report, iv. 167, 168. thing to the contrary; but that he thought' his brother had been very active in his own preservation.' Hamilton, in fact, had escaped the danger of being prosecuted as an incendiary by his new intimacy with Argyle. The 11th brought a third letter from Montrose. Oct. II. Montrose's third letter. This time he averred his readiness to prove Hamilton a traitor.1 After some hesitation Charles resolved to lay this letter before certain lords, amongst whom were submit it to Argyle and Loudoun, in order that they might advise him on the matter.2 Proposal to a committee. So far, at least, Charles had taken the straightforward course; but it was not one which was likely to commend itself to the wrathful noblemen who thronged around him at Holyrood. In Scotland the traditions of private war Feeling of Project of arresting Hamilton. opponents. had not yet wholly died out. A great nobleman depended somewhat on the arguments of his advocates before the Court of Session, and somewhat on his personal influence with the judges, but still more upon the sharp swords of his retainers. It was rumoured that Argyle and HamilArgyle and ton had 5,000 armed followers in Edinburgh.3 Those who wished to put an end to the influence of Argyle and Hamilton thought far more of the means of carrying the charge against them to a practical issue than of the accumulation of legal proofs. Behind the veil which still hangs over their proceedings may be dimly discerned efforts to win over such of the soldiery as still remained under arms, and to secure the services of Leslie, in order that there might be no violent interruption of the course of justice. Such, at least, would be the most favourable interpretation of their conduct. How far this intention was communicated to Charles it is impossible to say. But it may be safely inferred that if it was communicated to him at all, he would only hear of it as a plan for vindicating the majesty of the law, and that it was only as such that it would be likely to secure his approval, though it is more probable that 1 Hamilton's name was not mentioned, but there can be no doubt that he was the person in question. 2 Murray's deposition, Hist. MSS. Com. Report, iv. 167. 3 Colonel A. Stewart's deposition, ibid. iv. 164. |