Note 350 — Chapter X

Parl. Hist. 738. Clarendon talks of these proposals as worse than any the king had ever received from the parliament; and Hollis says they "dissolved the whole frame of the monarchy." It is hard to see, however, that they did so in a greater degree than those which he had himself endeavoured to obtain as a commissioner at Uxbridge. As to the church, they were manifestly the best that Charles had ever seen. As to his prerogative and the power of the monarchy, he was so thoroughly beaten, that no treaty could do him any substantial service; and he had, in truth, only to make his election, whether to be the nominal chief of an aristocratical or a democratical republic. In a well-written tract, called "Vox Militaris," containing a defence of the army's proceedings and intentions, and published apparently in July 1647, their desire to preserve the king's rights, according to their notion of them, and the general laws of the realm, is strongly asserted.