The neglect with which this message was received,
and the discouraging answer[b] returned by the officers, awakened his
apprehensions; they were confirmed by the Scottish
[Footnote 1: Clarendon Papers, ii. App. xliv. Berkeley, 385. Whitelock,
284.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1647. Nov. 16.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1647. Dec. 8.]
commissioners, who while they complained of his late offer as a violation
of his previous engagement, assured him that many of his enemies sought to
make him a close prisoner, and that others openly talked of removing him
either by a legal trial, or by assassination. These warnings induced him to
arrange a plan of escape: application was made to the queen for a ship[a]
of war to convey him from the island; and Berwick was selected as the place
of his retreat.[1] He had, however, but little time to spare. As their
ultimatum, and the only condition on which they would consent to a personal
treaty, the houses demanded the royal assent to four bills which they had
prepared. The first of these, after vesting the command of the army in the
parliament for twenty years, enacted, that after that period it might be
restored to the crown, but not without the previous consent of the Lords
and Commons; and that still, whenever they should declare the safety of the
kingdom to be concerned, all bills passed by them respecting the forces by
sea or land should be deemed acts of parliament, even though the king for
the time being should refuse his assent; the second declared all oaths,
proclamations, and proceedings against the parliament during the war, void
and of no effect: the third annulled all titles of honour granted since the
20th of May, 1642, and deprived all peers to be created hereafter of the
right of sitting in parliament, without the consent of the two houses; and
the fourth gave to the houses themselves the power of adjourning from place
to place at their discretion.
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