Aware that their own privileges
would infallibly fall with the throne, they rejected the three bills of
the Commons, voted a personal treaty without any previous conditions,
and received from the common council an assurance that, if the king were
suffered to come to London, the city would guarantee both the royal person
and the two houses from insult and danger. But Holles and his adherents
refused to yield; conference after conference was held; and the two parties
continued for more than a month to debate the subject without interruption
from the Independents. These had no leisure to attend to such disputes.
Their object was to fight and conquer, under the persuasion that victory in
the field would restore to them the ascendancy in the senate.[1]
It was now the month of July, and the English royalists had almost
abandoned themselves to despair, when they received the cheering
intelligence that the duke of Hamilton had at last redeemed his promise,
and entered[a] England at the head of a numerous army.[a]
[Footnote 1: Journals, 308, 349, 351, 362, 364, 367. Commons, July 5.
Whitelock, 315, 316, 318, 319. Ludlow, i. 251.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1648. April 28.]
The king's adherents in the northern counties had already surprised Berwick
and Carlisle; and, to facilitate his entry, had for two months awaited
with impatience his arrival on the borders.
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