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the Lower House. Their fear of the rival party made it impossible for them to approach him with the indulgence to which probably most of them would not now have been disinclined; and, though they brought him to an accommodation upon several points, they insisted upon some engagements— particularly for the final abolition of the episcopal order — which he could not bring himself to make. The Commissioners went their way. The last attempt at reconciliation seemed to have been made.

Remon

strance of

Nov. 20.

The army, stronger, more confident and more determined from its recent achievements, was again at leisure. Part of it was in Scotland and in the North with Cromwell. The rest had mostly been drawn near to the metropolis. They sent a "Remonstrance" to the Commons, praying, among other things, "that the King be brought to justice, as the capital cause of all the the army. troubles" of the kingdom.2 Affairs now grew pressingly serious for both the King and the Parliament. With bitter misgivings Charles brought himself to consent that bishops should be suspended from their functions till the sovereign and the Parliament should agree to restore them. The effect of this concession was seen when, after ten days' deliberation and advisement in the House of Commons, "the question whether the Remonstrance of the army should be taken into speedy consideration, was by ninety votes resolved in the negative."

Nov. 27.

Nov. 80.

This decision had been anticipated; and, on the day when it was announced, the King was taken from the isl and by a detachment from the camp, and conveyed to Hurst Castle, a fortress standing on a peninsular rock, near Lymington on the opposite shore. The next day

1 Lord Say and Sele, however, and Sir Henry Vane, were on the commis

sion.

VOL. II.

10

2 See the "Chief Heads of the Remonstrance," in Whitelocke, 355; Rushworth, VII. 1331.

Second march

Dec. 1.

Dec. 5.

Parliament was informed that the army was in rapid march towards the city. A message forbidding of the army any nearer approach was forthwith sent; but beto London fore another sunrise Westminster had been occupied by the troops. This violence did not prevent the passing of a vote by the Commons, after a debate of three days and a night, "that his Majesty's concessions to the propositions of the Parliament upon the treaty are sufficient grounds for settling the peace of the kingdom." Two hundred and twelve members voted, and the majority was forty-six. The next morning the members, on the way to their places, found themselves confronted by a regiment of horse and a regiment of foot, drawn up Dec. 6. in Palace Yard, the latter under the command of Colonel Pride, whose name remains attached to the transaction. Forty-one members of the majority were stopped and turned back; many others had received intelligence of what was going on, and did not present themselves; more than a hundred places remained vacant in the expurgated House. Cromwell arrived from the North on the evening of the same day.

Pride's
Purge.

Dec. 23.

Opposition was over, and events might now follow each other rapidly, as the will of the dominant party should give them shape. The House raised a committee of thirty-eight members to draw up charges against the King, who on the same day was brought to Windsor under a military escort. On receiving the committee's report, the House constituted a High Court of Justice to try him for high treason. A refusal by the Lords to concur was met by unanimous votes, — 1. that "the people, under Jan. 2. God, are the original of all just power; 2. that the Commons of England assembled in Parliament, being chosen by and representing the people, have the supreme authority of this nation; 3. that whatsoever is enacted

High Court of Justice.

1649.

Jan. 1.

and declared for law, by the Commons in Parliament, hath the force of law, and all the people of this nation are included thereby, although the consent and concurrence of the King and House of Peers be not had thereunto."

Jan. 20, 22, 23.

The Ordinance constituting the High Court of Justice provided that it should consist of a hundred and thirtythree members; but only sixty-six took their seats. The first two names on the list were those of Fairfax and Cromwell; but Fairfax had now compunctious visitings, and never appeared after the first session. Arraigned in Westminster Hall before this tribunal, the King on three successive days1 protested against its authority. Two days were then passed in an examination of witnesses, some of whom swore that they had seen him "in the field, in several fights, with his sword drawn." After an interval of another day he was brought into the court, and listened to his sen- condemned tence to suffer death by beheading. It was executed on the third following day in front of the royal palace of Whitehall. Proclamation was made that it would be treason to proclaim another King. By what remained of the Lower House, "the House of Peers in Parliament" was voted to be "useless

"2

and dangerous." The ancient monarchy and

The King

and be

headed.

Jan. 27.

Jan. 30.

Feb. 6.

peerage of England were among the things that had been.

1A Sunday (January 21) followed

Journal of the Commons, VI. 132;

the day of the arraignment. (White- Parliamentary History, III. 1284. locke, 368.)

CHAPTER III.

First meet-
ing of the
Federal
Commis-

sioners.

1643.

Sept. 7.

THE first year of the civil war in England had just expired, when the Commissioners of the Confederacy of New England came together at Boston for their first conference. All of them were men held in distinguished estimation at their respective homes. Plymouth was represented by Edward Winslow and William Collier; Massachusetts, by John Winthrop and Thomas Dudley; Connecticut, by George Fenwick and Edward Hopkins; and New Haven, by Theophilus Eaton and Thomas Gregson. Their credentials having been mutually exhibited, Winthrop was chosen to preside. The Commissioners gave their consent to the incorporation of Milford into the Colony of New Haven, and of Southampton into the Colony of Connecticut. They then proceeded to deliberate on a question that had arisen from some movements of the two principal nations of neighboring Indians.

The Narra

gansett and Mohegan Indians.

After the overthrow of the Pequots, the Narragansetts were the most powerful of the native tribes of e southern New England; and next to them in numbers and strength were the Mohegans, whose hunting-grounds lay at the west, towards the river Connecticut. The Narragansett chiefs, Canonicus and his nephew Miantonomo, had afforded some feeble aid in the war against the Pequots; and their relations with the colonists cannot be said to have been as yet unfriendly, though at an early period the former had sent a threat

1 Records of the United Colonies, in Hazard, II. 7.

ening message to Plymouth, and from time to time equivocal conduct on the part of his people had caused Miantonomo to be summoned to Boston to make explanations to the Magistrates.2 Roger Williams, now unfortunately absent in Europe, had obtained some influence over the minds of both, and there had been an interchange of friendly offices between them and the English settlers on Narragansett Bay. Uncas, the Mohegan sachem, was on like amicable terms with the planters on Connecticut River. He had rendered them useful aid in the Pequot war; and both from gratitude and from policy they had cultivated his good-will.

Jealous of each other's power, and irritated by the frequent collisions occurring on their ill-defined borders after the Pequot wall of separation was broken down, the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes were always on the verge of conflict. A policy too frequently pursued would have led the English to encourage these passions in the rivals, and to allow them to prepare themselves for a common ruin, by exhausting each other in mutual strife. But more generous considerations prevailed, and by the mediation of Connecticut they had been brought to agree to make no war upon each other without the consent of the colonists.3

Narragan

Miantonomo had long been suspected of unfriendly designs. Plymouth and Connecticut early took Hostile dealarm at a report of negotiations of his with the signs of the Mohawks for a joint invasion of the settlements; setts. and corroborating circumstances communicated the uneasiness to Massachusetts. In a conference with messengers from this Colony, Miantonomo made disavowals which gave only partial satisfaction; and in a

1 See Vol. I. 196.

1640.

June.

Hazard, II. 8; comp. Hypocrisie Un

Winthrop, I. 198, 199, II. 15, 16, masked, 71.

80-82.

* Winthrop, II. 8; comp. R. I. Rec.

* Records of the United Colonies, in I. 110.

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