fforts were directed by Scaramp, a papal
envoy, warmly opposed the project. Their enemies, they observed, had been
reduced to extreme distress; their victorious army under Preston made daily
inroads to the very gates of the capital. Why should they descend from the
vantage-ground which they had

[Footnote 1: Carte, iii. 110, 111, 136.]

[Footnote 2: Carte, iii. 90.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1643. April 23.]

gained? why, without a motive, resign the prize when it was brought within
their reach? It was not easy to answer their arguments; but the lords of
the pale, attached through habit to the English government, anxiously
longed for an armistice as the preparatory step to a peace. Their exertions
prevailed. A cessation of arms was concluded[a] for twelve months; and the
confederates, to the surprise of their enemies, consented to contribute
towards the support of the royal army the sum of fifteen thousand pounds in
money, and the value of fifteen thousand pounds in provisions.[1]

At the same time Charles had recourse to other expedients, from two of
which he promised himself considerable benefit, 1. It had been the policy
of the cardinal Richelieu to foment the troubles in England as he had
previously done in Scotland; and his intention was faithfully fulfilled by
the French ambassador Senneterre. But in the course of the last year both
Richelieu and Louis XIII. died; the regency, during the minority of the
young king, devolved on Anne of Austria, the queen-mother; and that
princess had always professed a warm attachment for her sister-in-law,
Henrietta Maria. Senneterre was superseded

[Footnote 1: Rushworth, v. 548. Carte, ii. App. 1; iii. 117, 131, 159, 160,
166, 168, 172, 174. No one, I think, who has perused all the documents, can
doubt that the armistice was necessary for the preservation of the army in
Ireland. But its real object did not escape the notice of the two houses,
who voted it "destructive to the Protestant religion, dishonourable to the
English nation, and prejudicial to the interests of the three kingdoms;"
and, to inflame the passions of their partisans, published a declaration,
in which, with their usual adherence to truth, they assert that the
cessation was made at a time when "the famine among the Irish had made
them, unnatural and cannibal-like, eat and feed one upon another;" that it
had been devised and carried on by popish instruments, and was designed for
the better introduction of popery, a