certify what he had done, with directions it should be delivered to Cromwell, and, he absent, to Sir Arthur Haslerig or Colonel Fleetwood, which was given to Colonel Fleetwood as one Lieutenant Markham informed the House, saying, the messenger that brought it told him so; nor did Sir Arthur Haslerig make a clear answer when he was asked concerning it in the House, Colonel Fleetwood being at that time gone to the army, so as he could not be examined. Whitelock, mentioning this transaction, says, that a party of horse, sent from the committee of troopers of the army, came to Holmby, where, after they had secured the guards, they demanded His Majesty; the commissioners, amazed at it, demanded of them what warrant they had for what they did; but they would give no other account but that it was the pleasure of the army. He then proceeds to give

a similar account of the rest of that affair to that

before given. He says, that the General sent to the Parliament the grounds of the soldiers' undertaking of themselves the business of Holmby; which were, that they had intimation of a design which they were able to make good, of some to surprise the King. Also, that he refused to return to Holmby, when offered to be conducted back by the General.

Lord Clarendon, after describing the manner of the King's removal from Holmby, says, that the committee with the King quickly gave notice to

the Parliament of what had passed, with all the circumstances; and that it was received with all imaginable consternation, nor could any body imagine what the purpose and resolution was. Nor were they, proceeds His Lordship, at the more ease, nor in any degree pleased with the account they received from the General himself; who, by his letter, informed them that the soldiers at Holmby had brought the King from thence, and that His Majesty lay the next night at Colonel Montague's house, and would be the next day at Newmarket that the ground thereof was, from an apprehension of some strength gathered to force the King from thence; whereupon he had sent Colonel Whalley's regiment to meet the King: that he (the General) protested that his remove was without his consent, or of the officers about him, and without their desire or privity: that he would take care for the security of His Majesty's person from danger; and assured the Parliament that the whole army endeavoured peace; and were far from opposing presbytery, or affecting independency, or from any purpose to obtain a licentious freedom in religion, or the interest of any particular party; but were resolved to leave the absolute determination of all to the Parliament.

Mrs. Hutchinson, mentioning this removal of the King from Holmby, only says, the soldiers, led on by one Cornet Joyce, took the King from

Holmby, out of the Parliament commissioners' hands.

Much has been endeavoured to be made to the prejudice of those who have been supposed to have been the contrivers of this removal of the King, particularly by the enemies of Cromwell, upon whom they wish to throw all the supposed odium of the measure. Real odium there could be none, in the perilous situation in which the army and its principal officers felt themselves, under the apprehension of the power and inveteracy of the presbyterian party in the Parliament. The army having, it appears, certain information of an intention to take the King out of the hands in which he had been placed, for purposes hostile to, and destructive of them, they deemed it necessary to frustrate that intention by bringing him amongst them: and, as the King did not suffer by the exchange, -on the contrary, from Lord Clarendon's own account of these proceedings, he appears to have been much more liberally and respectfully treated, than when with the Parliament's commissioners, no harm was done. The act itself was solely one of self-defence and preservation, which fully justified the proceeding.

This granted, no criminalty attached to the General or Cromwell, or to any others of the army, who should be proved to have contrived it; and they might, without any discredit to themselves, have openly avowed it. But if Cromwell or the

General really formed or knew of this determination to remove the King, and authorised or connived at the employment of Joyce in the enterprise, and should be found to have positively denied their previous knowledge thereof, no justification can be offered for so deliberate a falsehood, nor can their veracity be depended upon in any other transaction in which they had been, or were thereafter engaged; and Cromwell, as particularly aimed at, must be taken for that deliberate liar and hypocrite his enemies seem so anxious to show him to be. Now what is the proof of either the General's or Cromwell's contrivance or knowledge of this intended removal? Lord Clarendon describes the agitators as known to be wholly Cromwell's creatures, and under his direction; and that the presbyterian party had no suspicion of the General, whom they knew to be perfect presbyterian in his judgment; but that Cromwell had obtained the ascendancy over him by his dissimulation and pretences of sincerity.

Cornet Joyce's alleged letter to Cromwell, supposing it true, is no proof of Cromwell's previous knowledge of the design; for had Cromwell been really privy to it, it is not probable that a letter that must have referred to such privity would have been directed to be delivered to any other than Cromwell's own hand, and not left to be delivered indiscriminately to any other. The whole of this story appears to be a weak attempt

to fix upon Cromwell the supposed odium of the removal of the King. All the evidence respecting the letter is, the testimony of a Lieutenant Markham, as he is called, whose informer was the messenger that brought the letter, and Sir Arthur Heselrigge's supposed hesitation in answering the enquiries of the House concerning it. This is all conjecture upon which to found His Lordship's favourite hypothesis, the hypocrisy of Cromwell. Ludlow, speaking of the agitators, says that they (the agitators) sent a party of horse under the command of Cornet Joyce with an order in writing to take the King from Holmby. He also says, that they (the agitators) were jealous of Cromwell. He gives the following account of the purposed rendezvous, which was held in a field called Cockbush Field, between Hertford and Ware: that the time for the general rendezvous being come, the commonwealth party amongst them declared to stand to their engagement, not to be dispersed till the things they had demanded were effected, and the government of the nation established; to make good which resolution several regiments appeared in the field with distinguishing marks in their hats; but that Cromwell, not contenting himself with his part in an equal government, puffed up by his successes to an expectation of greater things, and having driven a bargain with the grandees in the House, either to comply with the King, or to settle things in a factious way without him, pro