As soon as the Parliament found that the king had made his escape from Oxford, they were alarmed, and on the 4th of May they issued an order to this effect, "That what person soever should harbor and conceal, or should know of the harboring or concealing of the king's person, and should not immediately reveal it to the speakers of both houses, should be proceeded against as a traitor to the Commonwealth, and die without mercy." The proclamation of this order, however, did not result in arresting the flight of the king. On the day after it was issued, he arrived safely at Newark.
The Scottish general, whose name was Lesley, immediately represented to the king that for his own safety it was necessary that they should retire toward the northern frontier; but they could not so retire, he said, unless Newark should first surrender. They accordingly induced the king to send in orders to the governor of the castle to give up the place. The Scots took possession of it, and, after having garrisoned it, moved with their army toward the north, the king and General Lesley being in the van.
They treated the king with great distinction, but guarded him very closely, and sent word to the Parliament that he was in their possession. There ensued long negotiations and much debate. The question was, at first, whether the English or Scotch should have the disposal of the king's person. The English said that they, and not the Scots, were the party making war upon him; that they had conquered his armies, and hemmed him in, and reduced him to the necessity of submission; and that he had been taken captive on English soil, and ought, consequently, to be delivered into the hands of the English Parliament. The Scots replied that though he had been taken in England, he was their king as well as the king of England, and had made himself their enemy; and that, as he had fallen into their hands, he ought to remain at their disposal. To this the English rejoined, that the Scots, in taking him, had not acted on their own account, but as the allies, and, as it were, the agents of the English, and that they ought to consider the king as a captive taken for them, and hold him subject to their disposal.
They could not settle the question. In the mean time the Scottish army drew back toward the frontier, taking the king with them. About this time a negotiation sprung up between the Parliament and the Scots for the payment of the expenses which the Scottish army had incurred in their campaign. The Scots sent in an account amounting to two millions of pounds. The English objected to a great many of the charges, and offered them two hundred thousand pounds. Finally it was settled that four hundred thousand pounds should be paid. This arrangement was made early in September. In January the Scots agreed to give up the king into the hands of the English Parliament.
The world accused the Scots of selling their king to his enemies for four hundred thousand pounds. The Scots denied that there was any connection between the two transactions above referred to. They received the money on account of their just claims; and they afterward agreed to deliver up the king, because they thought it right and proper so to do. The friends of the king, however, were never satisfied that there was not a secret understanding between the parties, that the money paid was not the price of the king's delivery; and as this delivery resulted in his death, they called it the price of blood.
Charles was at Newcastle when they came to this decision. His mind had been more at ease since his surrender to the Scots, and he was accustomed to amuse himself and while away the time of his captivity by various games. He was playing chess when the intelligence was brought to him that he was to be delivered up to the English Parliament. It was communicated to him in a letter. He read it, and then went on with his game, and none of those around him could perceive by his air and manner that the intelligence which the letter contained was any thing extraordinary. Perhaps he was not aware of the magnitude of the change in his condition and prospects which the communication announced.
There was at this time, at a town called Holmby or Holdenby, in Northamptonshire, a beautiful palace which was known by the name of Holmby House. King Charles's mother had purchased this palace for him when he was the Duke of York, in the early part of his life, while his father, King James, was on the throne, and his older brother was the heir apparent. It was a very stately and beautiful edifice. The house was fitted up in a very handsome manner, and all suitable accommodations provided for the king's reception. He had many attendants, and every desirable convenience and luxury of living; but, though the war was over, there was still kept up between the king and his enemies a petty contest about forms and punctilios, which resulted from the spirit of intolerance which characterized the age. The king wanted his own Episcopal chaplains. The Parliament would not consent to this, but sent him two Presbyterian chaplains. The king would not allow them to say grace at the table, but performed this duty himself; and on the Sabbath, when they preached in his chapel, he never would attend.
One singular instance of this sort of bigotry, and of the king's presence of mind under the action of it, took place while the king was at Newcastle. They took him one day to the chapel in the castle to hear a Scotch Presbyterian who was preaching to the garrison. The Scotchman preached a long discourse pointed expressly at the king. Those preachers prided themselves on the fearlessness with which, on such occasions, they discharged what they called their duty. To cap the climax of his faithfulness, the preacher gave out, at the close of the sermon, the hymn, thus: "We will sing the fifty-first Psalm:
"'Why dost thou, tyrant, boast thyself,
Thy wicked works to praise?'"
As the congregation were about to commence the singing, the king cast his eye along the page, and found in the fifty-sixth hymn one which he thought would be more appropriate. He rose, and said, in a very audible manner, "We will sing the fifty-sixth Psalm:
"'Have mercy, Lord, on me I pray,
For men would me devour.'"
The congregation, moved by a sudden impulse of religious generosity extremely unusual in those days, immediately sang the psalm which the king had chosen.
While he was at Holmby the king used sometimes to go, escorted by a guard, to certain neighboring villages where there were bowling-greens. One day, while he was going on one of these excursions, a man, in the dress of a laborer, appeared standing on a bridge as he passed, and handed him a packet. The commissioners who had charge of Charles-for some of them always attended him on these excursions-seized the man. The packet was from the queen. The king told the commissioners that the letter was only to ask him some question about the disposal of his son, the young prince, who was then with her in Paris. They seemed satisfied, but they sent the disguised messenger to London, and the Parliament committed him to prison, and sent down word to dismiss all Charles's own attendants, and to keep him thenceforth in more strict confinement.
In the mean time, the Parliament, having finished the war, were ready to disband the army. But the army did not wish to be disbanded. They would not be disbanded. The officers knew very well that if their troops were dismissed, and they were to return to their homes as private citizens, all their importance would be gone. There followed long debates and negotiations between the army and the Parliament, which ended, at last, in an open rupture. It is almost always so at the end of a revolution. The military power is found to have become too strong for the civil institutions of the country to control it.