[1]
To the Cavaliers, the conduct of Monk on this occasion proved a source
of the most distressing perplexity. On the one hand, by introducing the
secluded members he had greatly advanced the cause of royalty. For though
Holles, Pierpoint, Popham, and their friends still professed the doctrines
which they had maintained during the treaty in the Isle of Wight, though
they manifested the same hatred of popery and prelacy, though they still
inculcated the necessity of limiting the prerogative in the choice of the
officers of state and in the command of the army, yet they were royalists
by principle, and had, several of them, made the most solemn promises to
the exiled king of labouring strenuously for his restoration. On the other
hand, that Monk at the very time when he gave the law without control,
should declare so loudly in favour of a republican government and
a presbyterian kirk, could not fail to alarm both Charles and his
abettors.[2] Neither was this the only instance: to all, Cavaliers or
republicans, who approached him to discover his intentions, he uniformly
professed the same sentiments, occasionally confirming his professions with
oaths and imprecations. To explain this inconsistency between
[Footnote 1: Hutchinson, 362.
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