law. Therefore they swept away the Star Chamber and the High Commission Court; they passed a bill that Parliament was to meet every three years; they declared all the king's plans for raising money without leave of Parliament illegal. Of one man only they determined to make an example. This was Charles's chief minister, Strafford. To find ground for condemning him was not easy. At last it was shown that he had said to Charles, "Your majesty has an army in Ireland which you may employ here to reduce this kingdom". Strafford urged that this kingdom referred to rebellious Scotland. His enemies took it to mean England, and Strafford was voted to be a traitor, and executed. It is hard to say that the act was just, but Parliament felt that he was too dangerous to be allowed to live. "Stone dead hath no fellow" was the opinion of many about Strafford.

Arrest of the

The king's illegal powers had been destroyed. He had promised to amend. Moderate men thought enough had been done; they were not five Members. inclined to press him too hard. But Charles was, throughout all his life, his own worst enemy. Just when he was beginning to be trusted, he showed that he was quite unworthy of trust. Followed by a band of armed attendants he went down to the House of Commons to arrest by force Pym, Hampden, and three others, who were the chief leaders against him. He failed; the members had had timely warning. As he said himself, "the birds had flown". But this could lead but to one thing-war between King and Parliament. Promises were useless, the matter had to be fought out.

The Civil war falls into three periods. In the first the king had the upper hand. His followers were

War; Royalists

naturally better soldiers, more used to horses and arms than were the citizens who at first successful. made up the Parliamentary armies. Charles, too, had a dashing cavalry leader, his nephew, Prince Rupert, whose charges bore down his opponents' ranks. The Parliament fought hard, but steadily lost ground. Once the king drew quite close to London, but he did not dare to attack in force. None the less he seemed to be on the point of triumphing.

Pym saw that help must be got from somewhere, so he made an alliance with Scotland. The ParliaPym gets help ment signed the Solemn League and from the Scots. Covenant, promising to establish Presbyterianism in England, and the Scots were to send an army to help against Charles. The alliance was easy to make, for most of the Parliamentary party at the time favoured the Presbyterian system. This "throwing of the Scotch sword into Marston Moor. the balance" turned the scale against Charles. His generals, Rupert and Newcastle, were utterly beaten at Marston Moor. All the north was lost to the king.

Marston Moor, however, was not so much a triumph for the Scots, who did not do a great deal towards Cromwell and the victory, as for an English Roundthe Ironsides. head named Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell had raised a regiment of his own. He saw that discipline and zeal alone could beat the loyalty of the Cavaliers. His troopers were well-drilled, terrible fighters, who earned for themselves the name of Cromwell's Ironsides. They were godly men also, who thought themselves to be a chosen people fighting the Lord's battles against the Cavaliers, whom they called the Philistines. Cromwell was not a Pres

byterian, but an Independent. He thought all should be allowed to worship as they pleased; consequently all the sects looked up to him as their leader. Further, since Pym and Hampden, the first great leaders, were both dead, Cromwell had no rival. When by the Self-denying Ordinance Parliament voted that its members were no longer to hold posts in the army, a special exception was made in favour of Cromwell. Thus he was bound to become the most powerful man in the realm, for he was the one link between Parliament and the army. And when in 1645 Parliament gave him the task of forming a New Model army, he included many of his friends, the Independents, in it. All the The Indepenofficers were Independents. Thus the dent Army. New Model became the army of the sects, a church in arms. Cromwell was not a man for half-measures like the early Parliamentary leaders. "If I met the king in battle," he said, "I would fire my pistol at him as I would at any other man." His army

met the king at Naseby, and routed him so completely that Charles had scarcely a regiment left. [1645.]

One last flicker of hope remained for the king. He was beaten in England; but in Scotland Montrose, marching from the Highlands, had over- Montrose. thrown every force the Covenanters could

bring against him. In one year he won five victories; there was nothing to prevent him from marching into England. His Highlanders, however, scattered; they could not stand a long campaign. Thus deprived of half his army, Montrose was surprised on a misty morning by David Leslie at Philiphaugh, and routed.

Charles, being now without supporters, surrendered

to the Scots at Newark.

Charles Surrenders
to the Scots, and
is given up to Par-

liament.

But he could not grant

what they wanted, namely, the establishment of Presbyterianism, and he annoyed them by his shuffling, so they gave him up to Parliament. Parliament in return promised to discharge the Scottish arrears of pay.

Charles was not sorry to be free from the Scots. He knew that between the Independent Army and the Presbyterian Parliament there was no love lost. He thought that by playing off one against the other, he might get back his power. Unluckily he only made each party distrust him more and 2nd Civil War. more, and to make matters worse war broke out again. There was a rising of Royalists in Kent and Essex, while Hamilton, with a body of Scots who dreaded the power of Cromwell and the Army, invaded Lancashire. Cromwell marched north and defeated Hamilton at Preston. But this fresh outburst of war made the Ironsides think that there could be no peace while the king was alive, and the army came back to London, resolved to call "that man of blood, Charles Stuart," to account.

the Work of the Army, 1649.

It is important to notice that the final measure, the execution of the king, was the work of the IndeDeath of the King pendent party, the Army, headed by Cromwell. Parliament would not agree to bring the king to trial till Cromwell sent down a file of musketeers to the House and turned out the moderate Presbyterian members. The court that tried Charles was made up chiefly of Independents. The great mass of Englishmen was opposed to his execution. Scotland, as we shall see, was driven into war by it. The king's dignified behaviour on the scaffold made many men think him a