Note 277 — Chapter X

It was impossible for the king to avoid this treaty. Not only his Oxford parliament, as might naturally be expected, were openly desirous of peace, but a great part of the army had, in August 1644, while opposed to that of Essex in the west, taken the extraordinary step of sending a letter to that general, declaring their intentions for the rights and liberties of the people, privileges of parliament, and protestant religion against popish innovations; and that on the faith of subjects, the honour and reputation of gentlemen and soldiers, they would with their lives maintain that which his majesty should publicly promise in order to a bloodless peace; they went on to request that Essex, with six more, would meet the general (Earl of Brentford) with six more, to consider of all means possible to reconcile the unhappy differences and misunderstandings that have so long afflicted the kingdom. Sir Edward Walker's Historical Discourses, 59. The king was acquainted with this letter before it was sent, but after some hands had been subscribed to it. He consented, but evidently with great reluctance, and even indignation; as his own expressions testify in this passage of Walker, whose manuscript here, as in many other places, contains interlineations by Charles himself. It was doubtless rather in a mutinous spirit, which had spread widely through the army, and contributed to its utter ruin in the next campaign. I presume it was at the king's desire that the letter was signed by the general, as well as by Prince Maurice, and all the colonels, I believe, in his army, to take off the appearance of a faction; but it certainly originated with Wilmot, Percy, and some of those whom he thought ill affected. See Clarendon, iv. 527, et post; Rushw. Abr. v. 348, 358.